Fractured Steele
by RSteele82
Summary: (An ITCHy Story) From the new IT Could've Happened stories. Things don't quite go as planned at Ashford Castle after the lights go out.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It hadn't been an easy few days by anyone's standards. Hell, it hadn't been an easy few _weeks_ , all beginning with Remington's hair-brained scheme to marry a rented hooker to solve his immigration woes, then Laura and Remington marrying on a tuna boat to the same end. But it hadn't ended there, of course. No, everything but the kitchen sink had been tossed at the embattled couple, who sorely needed time to decompress, get their thoughts in line… to do the one thing they'd struggled with for years to do, but in the months leading up to the stunt with the hooker had gotten much better at: to talk. Instead, their honeymoon had been hijacked, Remington had been frame for murder, they'd been hired by a fictitious client to chase a piece of art half way around the world, a castle had been inherited, they'd been embroiled in an espionage plot, and a father had been found, then lost. Oh, and there was the matter of a devious ex-lover of Remington's appearing in the midst of all of this and an archaeologist/INS agent/spy who was openly and avidly sniffing after Laura… when he wasn't using her for his own gain, that is.

Then, there was the _big step_. Despite the upheaval of their personal relationship wrought by his hooker-wedding plan, in the jungles of Mexico they'd vowed to finally cross that line. An act of desperation? Perhaps. It was a valid question: Was the refusal to move their relationship into the bedroom what was preventing them from finally, truly moving their relationship ahead? Of course, both refused to consider the very real possibility that making love would change absolutely nothing, could actually complicate things further. Yet, despite all the rest of the events in their lives, chaotically dragging them along, they'd remained steadfast in their determination to finally become lovers.

But first, there had been a con to put into play, and now a funeral to watch as it was broadcast across the British Isles. So here he sat, the depth of his grief at his loss of Daniel weighing heavily on his shoulders, staggering him when caught off guard. And here she lay, across his lap, cradled in his arms, doing what had become second nature to her across the years: protecting him in times of turmoil. In silence, they focused on the television in front of them.

"In London, a military funeral was held today for the man who spearheaded the exposure- and subsequent capture-of British Intelligence double agent, Sterling Fitch. In gratitude for his heroics, Daniel Chalmers was posthumously knighted."

Laura smiled softly. Daniel Chalmers, knighted. It would appeal to Daniel's vanity, and certainly, if still alive, he'd possessed the elan to carry off such an honor.

The news broadcast continued, flashing to a hero's burial occurring in Moscow:

"In a related ceremony in Moscow, a high ranking KGB official, Sergei Kemadov, was given a hero's burial, for what the Kremlin ambiguously described as 'assorted heroic activities on behalf of the state'." Her smile widened

Remington picked up the remote and turned off the TV, his normally straight shoulders bowed in his grief, the normal sparkle of mischief in his eyes dulled by sorrow.

"Only Daniel could end up being buried as a national hero in both London and Moscow," Laura observed, a laugh trickling through her voice. He nodded slowly, sadly.

"It's the ultimate con. He deserves nothing less." She moved her hand, lying it atop his, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"You're a good son." He laughed softly, doubtfully, full unconvinced of that.

"I only wish I could have spent more time with him."

"On the other hand," she reminded him,, "You spent twenty years with him."

"Yeah." he agreed, then tossed the remote to another nearby couch and shifting position pulled her further up in his arms to gather her more tightly to him.

"Well, one thing's for certain," he said quietly, staring into her eyes, "I'm not going to waste precious time showing people who are close to me how I feel for them."

He bowed his head slightly towards her lips, and she lifted her head so their lips would meet. He brushed her lips with his, then kissed her, his mouth moving over hers softly, tenderly, trying to convey everything she meant to him in a single, breathtaking kiss as his hand slowly journeyed up her neck to stroke.

Laura moved suddenly out of his embrace. He dropped his now empty arms and looked away, feeling bereft by the sudden loss of her, before seeing her hand reaching out for his.

"Care to elaborate, _Mr. Steele_?" she asked, smiling invitingly at him.

"Well," he replied, standing then sweeping her off her feet and into his arms "We have the castle to ourselves- _Mrs. Steele."_

Laura closed the door to the salon behind them, as he walked with her in his arms towards the stairs. She glanced quickly around the room to see if anyone was nearby, and saw the large foyer was completely empty. She listened close and heard only the sounds of an empty house.

"Where are the servants?" she queried.

"Out celebrating," he told her. "I decided to give them the castle."

"Hmm. That was awfully generous of your lordship," she replied, running her hand down his chest and then brushing her lips across the area over top his heart.

"The act of a desperate lord, I assure you."

Suddenly remembering Mildred, she darted her head around Remington's shoulder, again looking around.

"Where's Mildred?

"I gave her to Mickeline."

"There's nothing between us and the bedroom door?" she asked, almost disbelievingly.

"Uh uh," he said, as he began to carry her up the stairs.

He spoke too soon. The phone on the foyer table trilled insistently and he cast a disbelieving look in its direction, knowing the woman in his arms would be unable to resist its siren's call. She never had been able to put them before a call, a knock on the door, business and she didn't disappoint now. She swung herself down to stand on her own two feet, a step above him.

"I'll get the phone. You turn down the covers," she said standing up on tip toe and kissing him.

"Hmmm hmmm," he nodded in agreement. He didn't argue. There was little point. Here a man was carrying her across a castle in his arms, prepared to do the same up two flights of stairs, then on to a room worthy of such a momentous occasion as them making love for the first time, and she was concerned with a blasted phone. Imitating a gun with his fingers, he took aim at the phone and fired. She laughed as he retreated upstairs, as suggested.

Jogging back down the few stairs between her and the foyer floor, she picked up the receiver of the phone.

"Hello?"

"Well, they finally released me," Roselli's voice came over the line.

"I never doubted it for a moment." She smiled, then cranked her head, watching, listening for Remington.

"I still think Steele's plan was a little risky."

"Kemadov cleared you, didn't he?" she asked,

"Laura, listen, what we talked about earlier- still stands."

"Laura!" Remington called to her from the bedroom. She glanced worriedly towards the bedroom upstairs.

"This really isn't the best time to discuss that, Tony."

"Laura, I'm not gonna give up on you." Her attention was drawn upstairs again.

"Laura! The bed's turned down!"

"I have to go. Right now," she said into the phone.

"Okay, when can I see you?"

"Fluffing up pillows!" Remington called down the stairs, drawing her focus again, as well as a smiled to her lips.

"Coming!" she called back, then into the receiver told Roselli, "I gotta go. Bye." She hung up the phone just as Remington walked down the first flight of stairs, stopping on the landing while casting her a weary look. She trotted up the stairs to him, had just turned to face him when the phone began to ring again. His shoulders fell, and bracing a hand on bannister, looked from the phone to her. Her eyes traveled the same path, a settled on the man before her.

"Let it ring," she told him. Pressing up on her tiptoes, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly.

There was a moment's hesitation, then his arms embraced her, he leaned more fully into the kiss as he swung her back up into his arms, not a single word spoken. He carried her up the remaining stairs and into their room, swinging the door shut with a kick of a foot. Only then did he release her legs. She slid down his body, staying in his embrace, her arms returning to his neck. Their eyes met, held for long seconds, the significance of what would take place shortly lost on neither of them.

It was he who moved first. A hand leaving her waist, so that it might lift the heavy fall of her hair over her shoulder, so his hand might cup the lovely column of a neck, and draw her upwards to meet his descending lips. The tenderness with which his lips caressed hers, captivated her, sent shivers rioting over her skin. The poignancy of the moment was not lost on her. In this one kiss he was telling her, without ever speaking a word, that what was to come would not be a simple shag. Not in his eyes. Not between them. She stepped closer, drew her fingers through his hair, then settled a hand on the back of his head, pressing him nearer. She felt his sigh beneath her hand on his back, against her lips. He withdrew, lifted a hand, caressed her cheek as their eyes met, held.

"I never quite believed this day would come," he confessed quietly, his look of dazed disbelief confirming the honesty of the statement. "It seems…" he touched his lips to her left eye "I've waited…" then her right "Half a lifetime…" her left cheekbone "To get…" her right cheekbone "This close…" The tip of her chin "To hold you…" The tip of her nose "To make love to you…" his lips brushed featherlight against hers "To know…" he kissed her more firmly, then suckled on her bottom lip for a long moment "You are at last…"

The shrill ring of the phone in the foyer below, bounced off walls, echoed into their room, loudly, insistently, demanding not to be ignored. It effectively silenced his words, although he deepened the kiss, to sway her to keep near, to not back away. She stepped closer, opened her mouth to his questing tongue, hummed against his mouth. He said a prayer of thanksgiving when the insistent ringing ceased. Cupping her face in both hands, he delved deep, his tongue caressing hers, dancing with it, as he reveled in the familiar sweetness of her taste, too seldom experienced, but always cherished, remembered, craved. A hand slid behind her neck, keeping their mouths firmly latched together, as the other hand departed, dared to caress the gentle swell of her bottom. She pressed closer to him still, squirming against him at the sensation. Her reaction gave him the courage to ease a hand beneath her sweater. He hummed when his sensitive fingers felt the silken warmth of her skin beneath them, as he caressed the small of her back, traced the gentle curve of her waist.

Below stairs, the phone began to peel again.

Her fingers clutched his shoulders, pushed him away, their lips parting with a resounding 'pop'. Panting, he stared at her, noted her flushed skin, dazed eyes. He waited for her to reach for the hem of her sweater, to pull it over her head…

"I can't… I need…" she babbled. He reached out, cupping her neck, drawing her close again. His lips descended only to meet her cheek before she stepped away again. "The phone," she tried again.

Had she not been so dazed by his kisses, the feeling of his hands on her skin, had her blood not been roaring in her ears, her body shaking with need, she might not have missed the look of insulted disbelief that flashed through his eyes before they shuttered, closing himself off or the way he shoved his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels. But she had missed all those signs as she turned towards the door, left the room.

It had been the last straw for him, as all the riotous emotions he'd shoved aside these last weeks swamped him, all the questions he'd patently ignored suddenly demanded answers. But her actions had made one thing clear: Things would never change between the two of them. Heat suffused his skin, part in humiliation, part because of the utter fury that roared through him like an angry wave crashing against the rocks during a violent storm. He strode past the bed they'd never shared, yanking open the closet door to where their joint belongings were stored, blindly grabbing first suitcase and garment bag, then arms full of clothing laying them on the bed. Meticulously, he hung suits and trousers, folded sweaters, which is how Laura found him when she returned.

She walked through the door, a smile on her face as she closed the door behind her. Her eyes scanned the vast room, surprised when she didn't find him waiting where she left him. When he saw him amongst the shadows, returning with another load of clothing from the closet, she stutter-stepped, blinked hard and drew in a sharp breath, her heart clenching.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice rising an octave in her confusion, as she took hesitant steps towards the bed.

"Who was on the phone?" he asked, patently ignoring her question. She blinked hard at both the question and the coolness with which it has been asked.

"I… I don't know," she answered, her eyes searching his face, picking apart his body language, as she tried to figure out what had made him change so suddenly from the tender, ardent, soon-to-be-lover she'd left, to the cool, granite hard man before her. "I disconnected it. Mr. Steele," her eyes widened when she saw him stiffen, his face infuse with red at her use of his name, "What is going on?"

"And the first time?" he asked, again sidestepping her question, but his discerning eyes coming to a rest on her face. His lips tightened into a thin line, his jaw twitched, when he saw a flicker of hesitation flash in her eyes. "Don't you dare lie to me, Laura," he bit out. "Not about us." She crossed her arms in front of herself, tilted her chin slightly upwards, showing a bit of defiance of her own.

"Tony," she clipped out. He gave his head a single, curt nod. It was then that she noticed for the first time, the bed upon which his belongings rested as he packed. The bed which had not been turned down, the pillows which had not been plumped. Anger and dismay warred within her. "But you knew that, didn't you?" Another curt nod was her answer. She watched as he crossed the room to the dresser he'd been using, while he removed pajamas, and undergarments.

"It's ironic, really," he muttered, almost to himself, as he passed her, returning to his suitcase.

"What is?"

"All these years, all the constant reminders you were unsure if I was worthy of your trust, never once did it occur to me to wonder if I could trust you," he seethed.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she demanded to know, thoroughly affronted. A hand plunked down on her hip and she waved in a hand in front of her as she spoke. " _I've_ never lied to you, _I've_ never tried to put a fast one past you, _I've—"_

"Haven't you?" he bit out, cutting off her defense of herself. "How long had you known Daniel was my father, that he was ill?" Her skin blanched at the question, and her lips moved, but she never said a word. "I see, you've no answer for that one, eh? Let's try another, then, hmmm? Tell me, again, why it is you ended us last year?" The question caught her completely off-guard. She stumbled backwards a step, lay a hand against the base of her throat.

"I… I told you why," she stuttered at first, but her voice grew more confident as she went along, "You lost our license." He waited until her eyes met his, and she swallowed hard at seeing the white hot fury burning within those blue eyes which usually twinkled with amusement and mischief.

"Had I now?" The jaw twitched again, and his eyes left her to focus on the packing at hand. "I had time to think that evening, after you left saying... What was it again?" he mocked. "Ah yes, that we needed time apart, to consider whether we really shared anything in common, wasn't it?" He leveled furious eyes on her with the question, before returning his focus to the suitcase. "You were well aware the SBIL was investigating 'discrepancies" in the Agency files, files predating either my or Mildred's arrival, yet you absconded to… Where was it to again?"

"Mexico," she answered tightly, then, as she lifted fingers to brow to knead, defended again, " _On a case_."

"Ah, yes, yes. A case," he pretended to recall. "William Westfield, wasn't it?" he lifted his eyes to her, and bared his teeth as he said the name. She closed her eyes and bit her lip, absorbing the blow like a punch to the stomach. "Tell me, Laura, what is Antony Roselli to you, hmm?" Her eyes flew open, and she gave her head a shake at the sudden change of topic.

"Wha-… What?"

"A fairly simple question, don't you think?" he asked, sarcasm peppering each word. His eyes flicked to her, then away as he turned to the closet, retrieving his shoes. "I mean, he must hold some role in your life… some… _interest_ …" he waved a hand in the air, mockingly, "For you to choose to converse with him right on the heels of leaving another man's arms as he was carrying you off to bed."

"Need I remind you, it's not me that's been pursuing him, but the opposite way around?" she countered, her own temper pricked by the question.

"When you're not busy rescuing his miserable hide, that is, right?" he posed acerbically. "As you were on the train to port?" Again, those eyes moved to her, watched her flinch, then moved away. "I must say, I've thought it over several times… indeed, pondered it into the wee hours of the morning many times over, and I can't quite recall…" he left the statement unfinished, knowing she'd be unable to resist the bait. Maddeningly, in her eyes, he zipped shut his garment bag, folded over and buckled it, without finishing his thought.

"Can't recall, _what?"_ she enjoined.

"Sorry, sorry," he held up a hand, feigning distraction when they both knew otherwise. "I can't recall single time in these four years I've been courting you, undercover or not, that you've _ever_ sat in my lap as we kissed, have encourage _me_ to explore your mouth at my leisure, permitted _me_ to allow my hands to roam freely wherever they wished…" His eyes shot arrows at her, "Or when you left _my_ embrace panting like a…" He held up a hand, stopping himself before he finished _that_ thought. Her hands returned to her hips and that chin tipped back again.

"Oh, for God's sake, is _that_ what all this is about?" she demanded to know. "Jealousy?!"

"It's not, although it's not an emotion either of us are immune to, is it?" he countered. "Just how many times have you frozen me out for days… weeks solid, even, because you _imagined_ I'd dallied with another woman? Felicia. Millicent. Anna. Joelle. Shannon. Those are but five names which come readily to mind," his voice continued to rise as he spoke, until it thundered across the room. "Yet, not once… not once!... did I do what I was accused of, let alone force you to watch as you did me on the train, in my flat! Enjoying it, none the less, knowing you were thrusting a knife into my gut, again and again!" She sucked in a harsh breath, reeling from both the accusation and the naked hurt which contorted his face. Still, her pride demanded payback for the former.

"Unless, of course, you consider me walking in on you trying to marry _the hooker!_ " she screeched back at him.

"Nothing has _ever_ gone on between myself and Clarissa, not because it wasn't offered, but because there was only one woman I wished to be with!" With those words, he deflated before her eyes, shoulders slumping, and a hand reached up to rub against a forlorn face. "I _hired_ her to get me out of the mess with the INS, while making it clear there would never be anything more between us than a piece of paper with both our names upon it. Don't you think I wish I could go back, do it all over again? I do. Do I wish to God I could take back the way I hurt you? I do!" He crossed the room to lean his backside against the window sill, where only days before Laura had assisted Roselli out of the window. His anger was revitalized by the memory, his voice rising again as he continued. "I'm asking you again, Laura, what is Antony Roselli to you?" She pressed the fingers of both hands against her forehead in frustration, then dropped them and looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"I've made it clear to him that I can't leave you." Her brows furrowed, the second she realized her mistake.

"Can't," he bit out. "As if I'm an obligation, a job, as opposed to the man you've been committed to for near on a year now, the man that's waited four goddamned years for you!" he thundered the last. "Tell me, Laura, what is it about the man that makes you think so highly of him, hmmm? His looks, his mannerisms? Although, come to think of it, he does bear some resemblance to Butch Beamis, and we both know how quickly you succumbed to him, don't we?" She drew in a harsh breath, her eyes widening in shocked disbelief at what he was implying, acknowledging it for the insult it was meant to be. "Or perhaps it's because he's a man of such honesty, integrity?"

"Maybe it's nothing more than he didn't see me as second best to a _hooker_!" she retaliated.

"Tell me, then, what was tonight about, eh? Nothing more than to sate your curiosity after four years of waiting?" His voice turned bitter. "Or had you planned to give me a ride, then take him out for a test drive, weigh the pros and cons of both performances in that ever logical mind of yours and make a decision: him or me?" He hadn't seen it coming. He should have, because whether or not he'd thought the question in his mind, it should never have been given voice. In four long, graceful strides, she crossed the room, reared back her left arm, and slapped him so soundly across his face, his head snapped to the side, and the sound echoed in the room. Her hands flew to her mouth as she stumbled backwards several steps and her eyes widened in horror at what she'd done.

"I'm sorry," the words tumbled from her mouth, "That was uncalled for." He held up a hand and flexed his jaw.

"No apologies necessary, Miss Holt," he assured her as he stood, "I was out of line." Without another word, he crossed the room and retrieved his overnight bag from the closet, then moved to the bathroom to pack up the remainder of his belongings there. He saw her reflection in the mirror when she came to stand in the door. He averted his eyes, and swept everything belonging to him off the counter and into his bag with a single stroke of his arm.

"Reming-"

"Don't," he barked, the single word carrying every piece of the injury felt that she'd dare to call him by that name now. "Don't you dare choose, now, this moment, to call me by _that_ name." He came to a stop before her, his face hard, implacable. When she finally stepped aside, he swept past her, striding with purpose across the room to sling his garment bag over his shoulder. She didn't know what to say to him, had never seen him this angry, this… hurt.

"Stop," she finally, blurted out as he leaned over to pick up his suitcase. "You stay. It's your castle. You should be here. I'll move to another room." She began walking towards the closet, when his next words stopped her in her tracks.

"That's not necessary, you can use the room, stay as long as you wish." His words set off alarm bells in her mind.

"Where are you going to be?" she asked, her hands clenching into fists at her sides, as she fervently prayed he didn't utter the words she knew to her very core were next to come.

"I can't do this any longer," he answered, his back to her, his voice dulled by the exhaustion that had suddenly taken hold. "I'm tired, Laura, and I've nothing left to fight with. I have been in love with you for so long I'm not quite even certain when it happened and have done all that I can to make you believe that: I stayed, I changed, I committed to you; I have remained faithful to you since the day Creighton Phillips passed through our lives, when first you gave me hope we might have a future. For four years, you have been the first thing I think about each morning when I wake, the last thing I think of when I fall to sleep." He sighed heavily, and rubbed a hand across his face. Behind him, she pressed her hands to her face, tried to muffle the sob that was ripped from her throat by his words, but couldn't. "But I'll never be enough for you, you'll never allow it to happen. There will always be a new reason you have to 'guard against me'… another William Westfield, Antony Roselli… if for no other reason than because they're not me. I'm just a man, Miss Holt. I'll never be perfect, and you'll never accept anything less of me."

"You promised me you wouldn't leave," she rasped, her voice thick with tears. He nodded, slowly.

"I did. And I'm not now, not by choice, at least," he answered, his own voice thick. "Like all the homes of my childhood, I wasn't enough for you to keep me, just for me. We both know the day you found me attempting that foolhardy marriage to Clarissa, I gave you the perfect justification you'd been waiting for and you mentally sent me on my way. You said as much in Mexico, although I failed to listen."

* * *

" _ **I was just thinking, why do we put up with all of this. Why it never seems to get any easier."**_

 _ **"You mean why we don't just give up and, uh, go our separate ways?"**_

* * *

"But, you certainly made your intent loud and clear with Antony. Made certain, if you will, that I got it through my thick head there's nothing left here to fight for, though Christ knows I clung as long as I could to the belief that there was." She watched as his hand slipped into his overnight bag, pulled something out, then tossed it on the bed before crossing the room and reaching for the doorknob.

"Mr. Steele!" she called out to him, desperately. "Don't _do_ this."

"Remington Steele doesn't exist, never has." Pressing two fingers to his lips, he laughed quietly, sardonically. "Although I certainly did my best to bring him to life… for you. Funny that. I'd managed to convince myself it was who I was, who I was meant to be." He nodded his head slowly to himself, gave a sad laugh. "But not you. Never you. You're far too clever for that." He swung open the bedroom door. "Goodbye, Miss Holt."

With those final words, he left, never looking back, the latch of the door clicking with absolute finality. White noise roared through her head, her vision clouded, and she would swear until her dying day that she felt her heart crack as a deep, yawing chasm opened there. Stumbling across the room, she grabbed blindly, frantically at whatever it was he'd left behind on the bed. What she found took her legs out from under her, and she landed hard on the floor. Turning to curl up against the side of the bed, she clutched it in both hands. He couldn't have said with any more conviction that he'd severed all ties with the life he'd claimed for his own, than he had by leaving it behind. For she held what he'd once claimed was the most precious gift he'd ever received:

The passport of Remington Steele.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Mildred had looked up with surprise when Laura climbed into the car to sit next to her for the trip to Galway Airport the morning following. Hair pulled back into a ponytail, she wore a pair of jeans, a sweater, wool coat, and, oddly, a pair of sunglasses although it was barely after dawn. But the sunglasses couldn't conceal the normally rosy cheeked younger woman's unusual pallor.

"You and boss tied one on last night, huh?" Mildred asked with a snort of laughter, giving the sunglasses a knowing look.

"Something like that," Laura answered vaguely.

The trunk behind them slammed shut and Terrence O'Reilly, Ashford's principal chauffer, climbed into the front seat, and after shutting his door, started the engine. When the car began to move down the drive, Mildred looked from Laura, out the back window towards the castle, then back to Laura again.

"Is the boss taking a different car?" she inquired. "I'm sure we could squeeze him in."

"He's not coming," Laura answered dully. Mildred frown then she nodded again.

"Staying behind to see to Chalmers's affairs?" Laura gave an almost imperceptible lift of her left shoulder, and turned slightly away, leaning her head against the window and closing her eyes.

"I guess you could say that." The answer made Mildred's brows draw together.

"Oh, honey, don't you think you should have stayed behind with him? He's going to need support at a time like this!"

"He insisted he'd be better off on his own."

With those final words, she closed her eyes and feigned sleep all the way to the airport, then on the flight to LA when she hadn't slept so much as a wink, not at all. When they arrived home, she'd stumbled up the stairs to the loft, Fred on her heels with her bags. Once he dropped them on the floor, she closed the door behind him firmly closed, and latched it.

The Agency wasn't due to reopen for three more days. Tomorrow she'd search for a good immigration attorney so she could find out how to save the Agency, if she could at all. It was, after all, the only thing she had left now that mattered to her. Walking across her living room, she took the phone off the hook in the kitchen and laid it on the counter, then made herself a glass of water. Curling up in the corner of her couch, she drew her legs up to her body, wrapping her arms around them, and rested her chin on her knees. She remained there as the afternoon turned into twilight, then twilight into night, trying to figure out how it had come to this, how it was even possible that there was no longer a Remington Steele.

* * *

On Friday, Laura hired Joshua Meyerson of Grant, Jacoby, Meyerson, Barcliff, et al to represent the interests of the Agency and herself for all matters relating to the INS. She'd freely and fully disclosed all that had occurred since the INS had entered the picture, including her quicky marriage to Remington Steele on the tuna boat on the afternoon of May 10th, 1986 and the forged documents they'd procured. The only matters she'd lied about were Remington's current status, alluding that he'd remained behind in Europe on business and, of course, that there was no such man as Remington Steele at all. She'd left the attorney's office both relieved and sick to her stomach. The former as he assured her he'd obtain Remington a temporary work visa, which would tide him over until the anticipated passage of a new law in the fall, which would allow immigrants who had lived and worked in the United States for at least five years prior to apply for full citizenship. She refused to worry, just yet, about how Remington Steele would do that when he no longer existed. For now, what mattered is that both she and the Agency would be safe.

As far as the latter? Her stomach had immediately soured when Meyerson informed her that not-so-legal wedding on the fishing boat was very much legal. Juan, as acting captain, had every authority to marry them, and since they were in international waters when the union occurred, an annulment or divorce would be needed to extract her from the pretend marriage which had turned out to be all too real. When the elevator doors had closed behind her, leaving her alone, she'd been reduced to hysterical laughter.

Back home, she was no longer laughing, but rocking back and forth, battling fiercely to keep her anxiety in check. She was learning the hard way that her father leaving, Wilson leaving, were a picnic compared to the loss of Remington. In the last years, it was to him she turned in times of turmoil, on him that she'd leaned for support – even if only so slightly it was barely felt… it was in his home and his arms she'd sought refuge when her world had imploded around her two years before.

Who did she turn to now that she'd lost her partner, her closest friend, the man she loved but had been too terrified to open herself up fully to? The irony that it was at this time the year prior when he'd disappeared was not lost on her. As impossibly hard as that had been, she had at least known how to find him then. Even more so, she'd had the hope he might _want_ to be found then.

Now? He'd disappeared into that misty night he'd once spoken of leaving no beacon to trace, no way of finding him, and he'd made it perfectly clear: he didn't want to be found, most especially by her.

* * *

On Monday morning Laura arrived late to the office, appearing paler and more drawn than she'd been only three days before. Mildred had cornered her as soon as she'd walked through the doors.

"We have eight potential clients, three of which are insisting they meet with the Boss. When should I tell them he'll be back?" Laura had been unprepared for the stabbing pain in her heart at the mere mention of his name, and lifted a shaky hand to lay it against her throat.

"Tell them Mr. Steele is in Europe for an undisclosed period of time working undercover and unable to be reached for the foreseeable future." She'd worked out the game plan over the weekend, but still had needed to force the words past the sudden lump in her throat. Mildred's head shot up, and her eyes narrowed on the owner of the Agency.

"The foreseeable future…" she repeated. Pressing up on her palms planted against the desk, she leaned against it. "What's going on, Miss Holt? Where's Mr. Steele?" What little color Laura had in her face drained completely away.

"Remington Steele no longer exists," she answered tightly. "He never did."

With that, she turned on her heel, went into her office and closed the door, making it clear the topic was no longer up for discussion.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

Remington had commandeered one of the Castle's cars the night he left – they belonged to him, after all, as part of the Castle's holdings – and drove into Galway where he found a passable hotel in which to spend the night. Not that he'd slept, not even so much as a single wink. He'd ordered up a bottle of fine scotch, had paced and prowled and abandoned the idea of drink after only a couple of quick swallows. Alcohol wouldn't have blunted the rage fueling him in any case, in fact it would be more likely to make it burn all the brighter.

So he'd paced, and prowled, and raged, then paced and prowled and raged some more, angry with himself, furious with her. When he finally stopped moving, he sat with hand propped against knuckled fist and had sulked for a bit, before he'd grieved. Grieved for the life he thought he'd been creating, one he'd come to cherish. A home, a profession he enjoyed (even if he wouldn't miss legwork a lick, at all), and a woman with a quick wit, fiery temper and gentle hand, when it suited her at least, who'd kept him enthralled for four, long years.

As dawn had begun casting its pale light along the horizon, he'd sunk into melancholy. Already, he missed her. Missed her so much that he ached physically from longing for her. It was only then that he'd reached for the scotch again, trying to drink her away: her image, the smell of her lingering on his clothes, the melodic lilt of her voice, the feel of her small hand against his arm, the gentle sway of her hips as she walked with his hand on the small of her back, her taste… those delightful dapples of colors sprinkled across her skin, her dimpled cheek when she smiled freely, those glimmering brown eyes.

To his utter mortification, he'd cried as he'd departed the Castle. Oh, just a stray tear here and there, at least at first. By midway to Galway, however, he'd had to pull the car over to the side of the road, and laying his head against arms crossed over the steering wheel he'd given in to his utter heartbreak. They were well and truly done, yet he couldn't even conceive of a life without Laura Holt in it. She'd been that singular spot around which his entire world had revolved for years now. He'd sobbed, there on that road nearly abandoned at this hour: Great, manly sobs which had left his shirt sleeves soaked, his chest heaving, his throat burning, and his head aching. He hadn't cried so hard when he'd been sent away from all those homes as a child when found wanting or even when he'd believed Anna dead. But none of those people had owned his heart as thoroughly as Laura Holt had. She'd been his Ilsa, which no one had been before her, and no one would be after. He'd at last pulled himself together and had vowed, then and there, there'd not be another tear shed by him for her.

The dream was gone, and now it was time to start over. He'd started from scratch dozens of times throughout his life, and he could do so again. At least this time, it'd be made all the easier, as he wasn't doing it destitute as he'd been so often in his early years. A quick visit to a contact in Galway had produced identification and a well-placed call to Monroe had seen funds wired to him. He flew out of Galway that afternoon to Dublin, catching a few much needed winks during the flight. By that evening, he'd contracted for six passports, recreating those seized by the Yard, for little more than nostalgia's sake, and one in the name of Alec Walker, one of Grant's lesser known roles, which would be used for travel. If all went well, by Sunday he'd be on the Cote d'Azur and by that evening he'd have a willing woman in his bed.

Just as the life he'd dream of once had come to an end, so had his celibacy. What better way to forget a woman, than to lose yourself in others.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

Mildred sat at her kitchen table, drinking a cup of warm milk, hoping it would relax her enough that she could get to sleep at a decent hour tonight. The last month and a half had been, well… hell. No matter what time she arrived at the office, Miss Holt was already there. When she drove home at night after bowling with the Dragon Ladies, the lights in Miss Holt's office still burned bright. At least in that much, it was the same as it had been the year prior when Mr. Steele had disappeared. But that was where all similarities ended.

Several times in the last two weeks, she'd arrived at the office to find Miss Holt slightly disheveled, and she would swear under oath, wearing the same clothes as the day prior. Working until she dropped from exhaustion, no doubt, Mildred had assessed. Unlike last year, when Laura had attempted to feign being positive, upbeat, this time she was… numb. Bereaved, Mildred would hazard to say. She didn't smile, certainly didn't laugh, there were no gal-to-gal talks. The light in her eyes had been thoroughly doused. It was as though her heart had disappeared, and all that was left was a single-minded machine. Work, work and yet more work.

But, most worrisome of all was Miss Holt's health. Dark circles had formed beneath her eyes, her cheekbones had grown prominent. Her clothes hung from her already previously petite frame. She'd stopped running, swimming, biking, spending her time working instead. And, several times over the course of the last week, she'd watched as the young woman had swayed visibly on her feet. If something didn't change soon, Mildred had resolved she'd be forced to call Miss Holt's sister. If anyone could badger someone into doing something, it was that woman, and Miss Holt certainly wasn't listening to well-meaning words from her.

It was a miserable existence, certainly for Miss Holt, but for herself as well.

Those two kids were, well, _her_ _kids_. One was wilting before her eyes, while the other was missing. She'd gained a good ten pounds the first forty-four days, seeking to find comfort for herself in food. Finally, three days ago, she'd had enough. She chucked the donut she was about to bite into in the trash then had booted up her trusty old computer. For two days, she'd checked flight manifests from Galway, Cork and Dublin to… anywhere… searching first for Remington Steele, then each of the five passports she'd tracked the year before. She'd come up with bupkis. She'd then extended the search to Heathrow in London, only to encounter the same results.

She'd been defeated.

The phone rang, breaking her away from her thoughts. With a glance at the clock she noted it was five before eleven, and mumbled to herself about the lack of courtesy people these days exhibited when it came to late night phone calls. Crossing the kitchen, she snatched up the receiver.

"Krebs, here, and this had better be good," she barked. For long second, only the quiet static of the connection was heard.

"Hello, Mildred, darling." The rich voice, the British accent was enough to make Mildred totter across her kitchen and sit down heavily on the chair she'd just vacated.

"Boss? Is it really you?" Tears pricked her eyes and her heart pounded.

"It is," he replied. He leaned back in the chair he was sitting in on the balcony outside of the master bedroom in Daniel's London townhouse. "Oh, Boss, where are you? Are you safe?" He took a sip of his chardonnay as he mulled how much to share.

"I'm fine, Mildred. Enjoying the life of the aimless wanderer, reveling in all the nights have to offer." He heard her sigh of relief on the other side of the line. He allowed him a moment to despise himself his weakness, but he had to know, had gone nearly mad with wondering these last weeks. "How is she, Mildred?" he asked so quietly that if Mildred hadn't been listening closely she would have missed it. He couldn't bring himself to say her name, had worked hard, in fact, to rid his vocabulary, if not his mind, of that particular word altogether… that word which once had meant all that was good in his life, that he'd taken such pleasure in using, but now represented only bitter regret and aching loss.

"Not good, Boss," she answered, then amended, "Awful. On the verge of collapse, I'd say. She doesn't eat. Only sleeps, I think, when she passes out her desk. Has easily lost ten pounds since coming back to LA." On the other side of the phone, he winced. She was already a tiny wisp of a thing, with that kind of weight lost she'd positively blow away with a decent wind. "You need to come home, Boss."

"I can't do that, Mildred."

"Why not?" she demanded to know. "Miss Holt _needs_ you." He gave a bark of a laugh at the mere thought of that.

"I'm sure Antony will be along any day now to pick up the pieces, to put right her again," he predicted, caustically.

"The phony bologna archeologist… spy… whatever he is?" she asked, aghast. Unseen by him, she shook her head in denial. "Uh-uh, nothin' doin'. He showed up at the office two, three days after we got back. By the time they were done speaking, Miss Holt was yelling so loud, I would be surprised if the people in the accounting office three floors up didn't hear her. She was going on about how she'd used him, just as he'd used her: to get to you. Screamed at him that he wasn't fit to shine your shoes, and if he ever came 'round again, she'd go to the INS, MI5, whoever it was he worked for and file charges of harassment against him. She really gave it to him good," she grinned, punching her fist into her hand. "Well, he stormed out of here and hasn't been heard from since. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say." He supposed he should find some satisfaction in that, but he didn't.

"Either way, she'll be fine, Mildred. There's no one more resilient than she," he assured the older woman. Her temper flared.

"Do you love her, Boss?" she demanded to know. He swallowed hard, then drew a deep breath. Her image flashed through his mind: Hair back in a French braid, little black bow at the end, yellow blouse tan jacket, black slacks. Brown eyes sparkling, brows lifted, dimple flashing, chin tilted back. Proud of herself she'd been.

* * *

" _ **Ever been kissed by a Sperm whale?"**_

" _ **Not without protection."**_

* * *

Unadulterated joy coursed through him at the memory, cocooned him in a warmth which felt much like the sun gently kissing one's bared skin on a beautiful summer's day. There was nothing quite so lovely as Lau-… her… when she was pleased with herself, with him. He pressed two fingers to his lips and closed his eyes, savoring the moment. But then, another remembrance, coming on the heels of the first by minutes.

* * *

" _ **Alright, let's have it."**_

" _ **Have what."**_

" _ **Don't try to play innocent with me. This is right up your alley."**_

* * *

The sun disappeared behind the clouds, the skies turned gray, and a winter's chill seeped into his bones. Always suspecting him, always believing the worst of him. As though he'd ever try to duplicate her Agency, her life's work, her most treasured of accomplishments, her first… maybe only… love. He picked up his wine, swirled it in the glass, took a sip.

"Boss?" He'd forgotten he was on the phone, that there was a question on the table awaiting his answer. Lau-… thoughts of her had long had the ability to turn him a bit scatterbrained.

"You, more so than anyone, know the answer to that question, Mildred." He could lie, not to her, though he wished dearly he was capable of doing so.

"Then come—"

"I can't," he cut her off. "There's nothing there for me. That much has been made clear." She was tempted to push the matter, but something in the strain of his voice stopped her. Miss Holt wasn't the only one hurting, that much was clear.

"Boss, what happened? Miss—"

"Enough about us," he interrupted again. "How are you doing, darling?" _Lousy, that's how I'm doing. I'm watching my two kids tear themselves apart and there's nothing I can do about it!_ is what she thought of saying.

"The Dragon Ladies are playing in the championship game tomorrow night," is what she said instead.

"Ahhh, leading them to victory again, are you?"

"You know it!"

Mildred regaled him with tales of the Dragon Ladies and shared with him that Bumpers had returned to town and they had a 'hot date' planned for the following Friday evening. How he'd missed this, his conversations with Mildred, the laughter they often brought. With a resigned sigh, he got to the matter at hand.

"I need a favor, darling. My ledgers, taken to Monroe, along with the keys to the Auburn, my flat." She sucked in a sharp breath.

"You're not selling them, are you, Boss?" The question required another sip of wine, more contemplation.

"Not yet. Monroe will see to it the Auburn and my belongings are stored safely, until I decide my manner of course." _Until I can find the spine to let go of the two things still tying myself to LA, to… her._

"He knows where you are?"

"Ah, Mildred, ever the intrepid detective, aren't you?" he laughed, warmly. "No more than an address where I might pick up mail from time-to-time, when I pass through." He waited, before asking again, knowing he was requesting a lot from her: choosing between her loyalty to Miss Holt, to him. "Can you do that for me?" He held his breath and waited.

"Under one condition." He'd been afraid of as much. If she required him to come back to LA, to speak with Lau-… _her_ … he'd have no recourse but to find another way.

"And that might be?" He held his breath and waited for her answer.

"You keep in touch, call regularly, so I know…" her voice cracked "... so I know you're safe."

"Ah, as if I could do anything else," he answered, by way of a promise.

"Boss?"

"I know, Mildred. I feel the same." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then with great regret uttered the two words necessary, "Bye-bye."

Mildred listened to the drone of the dial tone until it turned into the fast beeping which indicated a line off the hook. Walking across the kitchen, she hung up the phone and returned to her now lukewarm milk. She sat at the kitchen table until the wee hours of the morning, worrying, until she formulated a plan. She'd need one of those do-hickeys that recorded the telephone number from where a call was made. Normally, with Agency business, this meant going to Monroe, but instinct told her he'd rat her out in a hot second. She'd have to find somewhere else to get one, but where there was a will, there was a way. And she had plenty of the former when it came to her kids.

(TBC)


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Four and a half months had passed since that fateful night at Ashford Castle. It had taken nearly three months to pull herself together… somewhat. Food still held little interest to her, but sleep had ceased being the enemy and had turned, instead, into a refuge: a place where, for at least a few hours, she might be happy again. A place where gentle touches, sweet kisses, slow dances, warm fires, rich laughter, crooked smiles and twinkling blue eyes still existed. Those hours soothed, brought peace to an otherwise empty heart. She'd started running again three weeks ago, maybe not the wisest of choices given her weight loss, but she was at least rebuilding some of the muscle lost in recent months. Then, of course, there was the other benefit: it tired her out. She could then stay longer in the place where the words…

* * *

" _ **I have been in love with you for so long I'm not quite even certain when it happened…"**_

* * *

…weren't the end, but the beginning of two lives spent truly together.

The Agency had survived, would survive, in the wake of 'Remington Steele's' prolonged absence. Some clients had moved on, 'until Mr. Steele returns', of course, while it had also gained a few new ones. The Agency's bills were covered, that was all that mattered in the end. While she'd only taken on skip traces, asset traces, in the first weeks after her return, she'd in recent weeks begun taking on true investigations again. She'd had a close call a week before, the suspect holding a gun on her, and no partner around to watch her back, but the cavalry in the form of the LAPD had arrived in the nick of time, thanks to her having had the foresight to call them before she'd entered the old, abandoned building.

The experience, however, had been enough to make her consider taking on another investigator at the Agency. She'd dismissed the notion after mulling it over for a few days. The simple fact was, she wouldn't find another partner with whom she'd be so attuned as she had been with Remington, and if it wasn't him watching her back, then no one would, consequences be damned. If something happened to her in the course of business, then it was what it was. A fatalistic view, maybe, but one she'd begun to embrace in all aspects of her life.

Mid last week, she'd run into Norman Maxwell, the former boyfriend she'd inadvertently caused financial ruin during the course of the Lester Shane case. As he'd predicted, he'd been wiped out, his business ruined, as part of the fallout. But he'd found a job with another investment firm which had acknowledged it had been impossible for him to predict the criminal activities of the higher-ups at Perennial Corp. His days of 'flying high' might be over, but he seemed happy, content in his new, lesser role.

He'd asked her out on a date, and she'd accepted, as much because of her lingering guilt for her part in his ruination as it was to test the waters, to see if she was able to move on, which she'd long ago suspected she'd be unable to do. What better way to find out that with Norm? He was a nice man, a truly good one, who simply hadn't been able to get past the upbringing which had taught him women are the nurturers, men the providers, protectors. Dinner had been enjoyable, a pleasant way to pass some time. When he'd suggested a movie afterwards, she'd alternatively proposed a walk on the beach.

It was a mild, late September evening, the moon was bright, and a gentle wind stirred off the ocean. They'd strolled along the water's edge talking and when he reached for her hand, she hadn't pulled it away. Norman's hands were large, but they lacked the elegant, slim, sensitive fingers that could so easily detect the merest twitch of her hand. And twitch her hand had, often, as if it were protesting the foreign presence surrounding it.

Still, when he'd walked her to her car as it approached midnight, and he'd bent down his head to kiss her goodnight, she'd tilted back her head and pressed up on her toes. It wasn't the kiss, it was perfectly… nice. It wasn't him, for he, too, was perfectly… nice. She couldn't say for certain what it was. That the lips covering hers weren't the right texture, or quite as full? They neither caressed with the same ardent tenderness, nor teased in that way which dared her to sink into the kiss? That the hand which pressed firmly against her back, didn't bury itself in her hair, gently stroke the column of her neck? That the taste of the mouth exploring hers wasn't as rich, as spicy as it should be?

It didn't really matter why, only that when another man's touch, his kiss, had reached out from her memory, a sob had ripped free from her throat, and she'd cried into _this_ man's mouth. She'd shoved Norman away, dove into her car and sped off, then ignored the phone for days when it rang, and message after message was left. Eventually, Norm had gotten the point: it wouldn't… couldn't happen.

Her heart had been stolen by another, and she'd never get it back. She was convinced of that, so she'd resigned herself to being alone because the man that owned that heart had disappeared into the wind. Another bit of fatalism, maybe, but she could live with it and that was all that mattered. After all, had she honored a similar vow after Wilson left, she wouldn't have found herself the third time the loser.

She hadn't cried, not a single tear, since that night at Ashford. She hadn't known before that loss, grief, could be so profoundly deep that it was capable of acting like a plug, preventing any emotions at all from reaching the surface. She'd plodded through life utterly numb. She didn't smile or laugh, she didn't cry or rage. She just… existed… in this perpetual state of anguished loss.

Three weeks had passed before she'd been able to make herself go to Remington's flat, to retrieve the belongings that she'd brought there to stage their 'happy marital home' for the INS before they'd been dragged off to England on an alleged case, then had moved on to Ireland to see Remington's inheritance. She'd packed away her clothes and shoes, her toothbrush, brush, shampoo, crème rinse and shower gel, before turning to 'his' side of the closet. She'd fingered his shirts, finding his scent still lingered on several. She'd lifted his pillows from the bed, found _him_ buried in the down. Wrong or right, sane or absolutely crazy, she'd packed pillows and shirts up as well. He'd never know. He was never coming back. But to her they would mean everything: a way to surround herself in him so she could make it through the nights ahead.

The months which had past had borne her well in some ways, at least. They had given her the time she needed to really think about all that had happened during those final days when Remington was still Remington, time she hadn't been afforded between the day she she'd found him at the Little Chapel of Perpetual Happiness and the night he'd left her at Ashford Castle. She needed time, as well, to consider each of the charges he'd levied against her. She vowed to herself that she would approach it all with utter truth, allowing neither he, nor herself, any exceptions for what they'd done to one another.

The first of those matters was, in the end, the easiest to dispose of – an irony not lost on her, since, despite their complicated history, in its utter simplicity it was the reason Remington had finally flown the flag of surrender and walked away: her actions with Anthony Roselli. Had she been attracted to the man? It had required brutal honesty on her part to come up with the answer to that one. Flattered by the attention? Yes, for she was no less immune to a stroking of her vanity than anyone else was, including Remington himself.

But had she been legitimately attracted to Tony? That was a harder question to answer, because as Remington had so insultingly pointed out, her history was not without a Roselli-esque persona in it, in the form of Butch Beamis, although she'd never slept with the behemoth as Remington clearly believed she had. Tony, like Beamis, was raw, bordering on vulgar, and clearly didn't believe women were a man's equal. The few times they'd kissed, those kisses hadn't touched her to the core, as Remington's always did. But there was no denying, either, that the kiss on the train had stirred her libido. Was that because of the man himself, or for no other reason than she'd been in a perpetual state of sexual frustration for nearly four years and she'd already been 'revved up', so to speak, by her own imagination as she'd planned to make love to Remington on that very train? She was inclined to believe the latter.

Could she envision a relationship with Tony? Going to bed with him or even a future with him? The answer was an unqualified no, on all points. In all truth, his allure had been in what he'd offered to her as a means to an end: a weapon against Remington, first as punishment for his foolishness with the hooker, then later as retaliation for one of the bimbos from his past showing up amid all the other turmoil. But had she, even for the most incremental of measurements, thought of Tony as a potential lover? That question received a resounding, 'no' in answer. There had only been one man in four years that she craved to feel touching her, to watch as he moved over her, to feel as he moved within her: the singular man who had starred in her midnight fantasies for years. As for a future? Despite the numbness that encapsulated her, she'd given a bark of laughter at _that_. The man was everything she never wanted: a liar, a manipulator, a person who used others for their own gain, who thought far too highly of himself, and was a closet misogynist to boot.

As for the other charge Remington had laid at her feet, that she'd intentionally plunged a knife into his gut again and again, while drawing immense enjoyment from doing so? That was the most troublesome point of them all. For she had – both plunged that knife and taken enjoyment in his anguish. Despite a childhood that should have turned him cold and hard, the man had the gentlest heart she'd ever known. And that heart had claimed her as his own, a very, very long time ago, much the same as her heart had claimed him. As he'd pointed out on that fateful night, neither of them were immune to jealousy, both of them inclined towards a touch of insanity when another tried to traipse too near what the viewed as theirs. She done it herself, as he'd also pointed out: Felicia, Millicent, Anna, Joelle, Clarissa, Shannon, although he'd forgotten Margaret and Eloise. As had he, with Creighton, Freddie Smith, Butch Beamis, Clay Platt, Bill Smith and Norman Maxwell.

William Westfield. What a blow that had been! She'd thought herself clever, having concealed that misstep so well. To discover he might have known all along? What had it taken for him to return to LA with her after that? What concessions, what promises had he had to make to himself in order to come home while believing that she'd left him for another man? It made her actions with Tony all the more cruel, because he wouldn't have been watching an annoying, hurtful flirtation, but instead would have been watching the very real possibility of being cockolded, made a fool of his for his misplaced faith, all over again. That realization had made the weight of her grief, which already threatened daily to buckle her at her knees, ten times… a thousand times… heavier.

Still, there had been a chance to calm his rage, to work things out that fateful night, until the use of a single word: 'can't'. Why? Why, why, _why_ had she used _that_ word not once, but _twice_ \- first with Tony then with Remington? The why for Tony came quickly: she'd wanted to keep him on the string, just in case she needed him again. Why then with Remington? Stunned, off-balance, she'd simply told the truth without consideration of the possible consequences. It was the only answer she had, because long ago, she'd inadvertently injured him when she'd referred, abstractly, to him as an obligation.

* * *

" _ **I never thought of myself as work, Laura."**_

* * *

Her tenderhearted Irishman. A quick wit, a rapier tongue when pressed, so seldom overly-serious, but when he was already questioning what place he held in her life, every word was taken straight to heart. Certainly, on that night at Ashford he was questioning where he stood, everything about them, in fact. Can't. He'd taken it literally. Can't because of the INS? Can't because she needed her fancy front man? It didn't really matter what the 'can't' was, only that in her heart she knew in his mind he'd interpreted it as 'I want to be with you, but can't because...'

For weeks, she'd pondered the charges he'd levied against her, until only one remained: That he was unable to trust her. It was by far the most difficult accusation to work through, because as a rule she judged herself honest, reliable, to a fault. When she first considered that particular complaint, instinctively she'd begun ticking off every single instance in which she'd saved his hide from a certain prison sentence or just saved it in general: DesCoine, Anna Simpson, the Hapsburg Dagger… Harry Cranston and Rubin Saltzman. It had gotten her nowhere. Defending her honor, even if only in her own mind, brought her no closer to understanding why he felt the way he did. And she had not a single doubt he'd exposed himself fully, honestly that evening, which meant she had a way to go if she was ever to understand how they'd ended up where they did.

Finally, two weeks ago, she'd sat at home one long, lonely Friday night, glass of wine in hand, wearing one of his shirts she'd helped herself to, and committed herself to being brutally honest. How many times had she been given the opportunity prove she'd stand behind him, without making her own trust conditional? Her faith in him had been shaken, briefly, with DesCoine, after she'd found the doctored pictures of Remington with McIntyre. Later, she reminded herself, she'd assumed it was someone from his past framing him… she hadn't imagined for a second it might be someone from hers. She'd definitely been quick to levy the blame on him when the Royal Lavulite had been stolen from them after the Agency had been hired to protect it a second time. She'd been so angry with him over the Hapsburg Dagger affair that her attention was focused on protecting the Agency, not him. During their first encounter with George Edward Mulch, when someone had placed a target on his back, she'd automatically assumed it was due to his past and he'd been affronted enough that time to not take the accusation lying down.

* * *

" _ **Yes, but before I tumbled into your life, you managed to put quite a few people away who weren't even aware that Remington Steele didn't even exist.**_ _ **They**_ _ **didn't know that you created this shadow man to drum up business. I mean, now that I've slipped into Mr. Steele's shoes, there's any number of ill-tempered people out there who'd like to perforate**_ _ **me**_ _ **for**_ _ **your**_ _ **previous efforts."**_

* * *

Until that night at Ashford, it was the singularly longest statement she could ever recall him making in defense of himself… and the second most impassioned, the first being as they'd argued on the streets of Cannes.

* * *

 _ **"Laura, I wanted to include you but I couldn't because I knew damn well how you'd react. My friend needed help and he needed it fast… I couldn't come to you in my hour of need because I knew that if you disagreed, there would be no room, no room whatsoever for discussion."**_

* * *

It had been a harsh pill to swallow, admitting, even if only to herself, that she'd not been as steadfast as she'd imagined herself to be. Yes, in the end she'd come through for him every time, including marrying him on that tuna boat… but never without impunity. Was it any wonder, then, when he found himself in trouble, he was hesitant to come to her? How many times could a man be reminded of all his shortcomings, all his mistakes, held in judgment for a past he couldn't possible change, before he would simply avoid situations where they might be listed out point-by-point again?

Then there was Daniel. She'd known and she hadn't told Remington. She who lectured him all the time about the need for full-disclosure, about the importance of not keeping secrets from each other: when push had come to shove, she'd kept a secret about the most important, most haunting question of his life.

She hadn't been happy with her findings, or happy with herself, but there it was: Daniel, her conditional support… men. Valid cause for him to question if _she_ could be trusted. It was the closest she'd come to tears since the night he'd left, acceptance of that truth. She hadn't cared for his heart, as well as she'd believed she had. She hadn't protected him without impunity, as she believed she had. And it had never been a secret, she'd never given any part of herself to him freely – heart or body. Now, here they were. Here she was. Alone.

Yet, while she was willing to take full responsibility for her wrongs, so, too would she hold him accountable for his. Beginning with his hair-brained scheme to marry the hooker. _What had he been thinking?!_ ( _Other than, of course, he couldn't come to you,_ a little voice niggled in her ear). Had his endeavors been successful, did he honestly believe she'd congratulate him on the ingenious way he'd outwitted the INS? That their relationship would… or could… continue? That he wouldn't have broken her heart into a thousand pieces then scattered it into the winds, by turning to another woman, by _marrying_ another woman? _What had he been thinking?_

He hadn't been thinking at all, of course. She'd known it as they'd argued on the streets of LA and she knew it now. There were only three modes to Remington Steele when he felt cornered: panic, run or con. The first inevitably leading to either the second or the third, and always, always not accompanied by thinking things through. Especially if he believed he was in it alone. She'd seen it firsthand, with DesCoine, and, of course, at Las Haddas after Keyes's body had shown up in their villa. When the INS had appeared on his doorstep, panic had set in. Running would have defeated his ultimate goal: protecting the life he'd created here, the person he now saw himself as, and, she liked to think, remaining with her. So, option three it had been. Not once, considering the possible consequences, the potential costs to them _both_.

Logically, when dissecting his reasoning piece-by-piece she could track how he'd arrived at his disastrous decision to hire Clarissa to marry him, not that it excused him for his actions. But there were other offenses he'd committed on that day that for which she could neither uncover motivation nor understand. Beginning with his actions at the church when she'd discovered him at the altar. If he cared for her as he claimed to, he would have had to known finding him at the altar with another woman would leave her heart tattered and in shreds. But then, to add insult to considerable injury, he'd claimed she was an off-balanced cousin, tossed her over his shoulder like a potato sack, locked her in a closet, and later at Unidac had sat idly by watching as she was battered then nearly drowned by a man twice her size. Still, it hadn't ended there. Oh, no! He'd then had the audacity… the unmitigated gall, to blame _her_ for his INS issues.

 _What had he been thinking!?_ She had no answers except his actions were in direct contradiction to his claims that he cared for her and certainly flew in the face of his wanting to keep near her as being one of the contributing reasons for his panic in the days leading up to his 'wedding.' For the man of deeds, how was she supposed to translate what he'd done?

For that matter, how was she to translate the aspersions to her character that last night? An innocent she might not be, but she'd never dabbled in the careless encounters he himself had across the years. In fact, she was nothing if not _discerning_. Shouldn't he, better than anyone know that of her, given the years she refused to settle for nothing more than a roll in the hay? Who was he to judge her, even if she had? She'd lost count of how many bimbos had crossed through the office, not to mention his bed, the first weeks after he'd arrived in her life: Mitzi, Mimi, Sheila, Doris, Mary, Nadine, Susan, Gayle... just to name but a few. In a few weeks' time span, he'd more than doubled the number of lovers she'd had in her _entire lifetime_. Was he truly a closet sexist, and she'd never caught wind of that fact? His random and frequent encounters written off as acceptable... applaudable, even... because he was 'a man,' whereas her taking a lover into her bed deemed her a whore for no other reason than she was a woman?

No, she'd sighed, not that. His comments on Beamis and Tony were nothing more than his jealousy at play. Intellectually, she knew that, though his words had stung her heart, had insulted her to the core. The man was nothing if not an insatiable flirt, yet how often did she greet his eagerness to have his ego stroked with nothing more than a roll of her eyes? Yes, there were times she'd questioned whether he was still engaging in his dalliances, even while he was allegedly in single-minded pursuit of her. Yes, as he'd claimed, she'd frozen him out cold when she suspected that was the case: Felicia, Millicent, Joelle, Margaret, Clarissa, Shannon, all came readily to mind as instances when she'd allowed her own jealousy to reign free. It took great presence of mind to remind herself, regularly, that she couldn't take him to task for his flirtatious nature, when so often she shoved him out there as bait to precipitate the resolution of a case for that very reason. But, there were simply times he took it too far... or she was led by the actions of other to believe he had.

Yes, jealousy, even injury, she could understand. But the judgement cast by him on her when she'd neither done what he'd accused her of nor should be held to a double-standard if she had... _that_ she couldn't understand or justify.

Then there was his own history of hiding things from her, shutting her out, never quite understanding that each time he did, it placed at risk what he continually claimed he most wanted: her and her trust. Daniel and Hoskins; Daniel and the Duke fiasco; and the Hapsburg Dagger incident… again. Deceptions, heaped on top of lies, topped with a healthy dose of 'what she doesn't find out, can't hurt me.' Granted, until the marriage bit, he hadn't tried to put one past her since Daniel's attempt to pull him into the scheme to swipe a dukedom, but she was always holding her breath, waiting for it to happen again and just when she'd begun to trust that it wouldn't, that he'd come to value what they were working towards too much… Bam! She'd been completely blindsided.

That last evening, when she'd finally all sorted it out, she'd curled up with her side pressed to the back of the couch, and had tugged the afghan up around her. She was cold all the time these days. The weight loss, she assumed… or maybe the cold, stark loneliness of her heart had simply spread to the rest of her body. She closed her eyes, willing sleep to come. Sleep where warmth awaited her. Warmth in the form of a tall, lean man, with thick, dark hair, bright blue eyes and gentle hands. As the twilight of sleep began to descend, one of the last things Remington had said to her, echoed through her mind, as it had many times each day since he'd gone.

* * *

" _ **I'm just a man, Miss Holt. I'll never be perfect, and you'll never accept anything less of me."**_

* * *

He'd been correct about the first: he wasn't perfect… far from it, in fact. But so was she, as her own self-assessment these last months had proven. But despite his flaws, she'd known since the first year he'd been in her life, he was perfect for her and that simple fact alone had the ability to scare her to her very core. But frightened or not, she'd have done whatever was needed to keep him from harm, to keep him with her, be it bringing him home from London last year or marrying him on a tuna boat this year. He was hers and no one would cause him harm, take him from her, not on her watch…

Unless that harm came by way of her own hand.

That was the harshest of all truths she uncovered these last months.

For a man who'd spent an entire childhood being shuffled from one home to the next because he was found wanting in each, he craved nothing more than for her to want him for the whole of who he was, flaws and all. Instead, she'd kept him near for all the good she saw in him, but kept him at arm's length for all the imperfections, then used those same imperfections to reject him outright again and again.

And now? She would gladly give up all she had to be the benefactor of one of his antics. It would still drive her crazy, but that wouldn't matter at all. Because at least he'd be here: blue eyes sparkling with mischief, a smile flashing, brow lifted. She didn't need him to be perfect, she just needed him to be present.

She fell asleep with that troubling thought on her mind.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Remington arrived in Saint-Tropez on the Sunday following his departure from Ashford Castle with six new passports in hand and life of his own making standing before him for the first time in four years. Here, on the French Riviera, he was once Paul Fabrini and it was who he would be again. Paul Fabrini with his old European airs, rigid manners, cool exterior and spendthrift ways. The French Riviera offered all he was seeking at the moment: good wine, great food, any number of establishments which offered high stakes games of chance, an active, opulent nightlife, and fast, free spirited women seeking to have their needs sated.

For six weeks, he'd drank freely of it all, taking his fill in a way he hadn't done in years. His pockets were flush with the blunt he'd won from the unsuspecting at the gaming tables, his calendar was filled with invitations to the finest of soirees being held across Europe for months to come and he'd bedded so many women he'd already lost count. True to his vow, he'd seduced a tall, voluptuous blonde on the night he arrived, the night after that it had been a brunette with large… eyes, then two nights following her, another blonde.

And so had it gone from Saint-Tropez, to Cannes, then Monte Carlo and Marseilles, and eventually, after a breather in London, back to Saint-Tropez. He'd been indiscriminate in who he'd taken into his bed, his only qualifications limited to two: Firstly, whatever woman it was, she could not resemble, in the least, in neither mind nor body, the woman he'd pined after for years; and secondly, she could not tempt him into offering to extend the assignation beyond that single night. He'd been successful in both, feeling not a single morsel of remorse, when within minutes of separating his body from that of the woman of choice on the evening, he'd buss her on the cheek, thank her for a wonderful time, get dressed and bid her his adieu.

He should have, in his estimation, like days of old, felt a smug satisfaction when returning to his hotel room after these encounters. As the saying went, he'd come, he'd seen and he'd conquered – although perhaps not in that order - and then he'd departed… unencumbered and with no regrets, his intent executed to perfection from start until end. Why then, was he left feeling wholly unsatisfied… bereft, even… after each romp? Where was the smug satisfaction he'd once enjoyed when he'd so easily had what he desired? Now, he'd find himself standing on the balcony of his hotel room, drink in hand, wondering why instead of feeling sated, he felt wholly unsatisfied. That gut clenching need which had been omnipresent in his daily life for years, still followed him and seemingly could not be assuaged.

The phone call to Mildred five days past had left him… shaken. He'd returned to Saint-Tropez, more determined than ever to put the fiery little sprite out of his mind, once and for all. He'd been unsuccessful in that, as he'd been with so many other things where Laura was concerned. Instead, she haunted his dreams. Those shimmering brown eyes doused of their spirit, her petite frame growing even more miniscule, the defiant tilt of her chin absent, the dimple in her right cheek vanished. He'd watch as she worked herself to the point of exhaustion, then fall asleep at her desk, head resting on folded arms, only to wake a few short hours later and begin all over again. He'd shake himself loose from the dreams whilst pulling a hand through his hair, his heart pounding, knowing the dreams, given Mildred's description, was _her_ reality now. When Laura was conflicted, she buried herself in her work, distracting herself from both thought and emotion. When she was stressed, it took a gentle hand, not to mention a significant amount of cunning, to get her to ease food past her lips. When she was hurting, she'd stay up all night flagellating herself, for no other reason than for being human.

He'd been disturbed enough by the images, that he hadn't even waited a full week before calling Mildred again, loathing his weakness even as he tapped Mildred's home number into the phone. Stepping out onto the balcony of his room in Cannes, where he'd returned to the day prior, he stared out over the Mediterranean. It was with great relief that he greeted his substitute mother when she answered the phone. After confirming his ledgers had been sent on their way, a flimsy excuse at best, he'd again inquired after his former partner.

"Lousy, that's how she is. There's only one thing that'll turn her around, so what are you gonna do about it?" she'd challenged. His face grew drawn at both the answer and question, and he dragged a quaking hand through his hair.

"Mildred… I can't…" he answered gruffly, his tone begging her to understand.

"The two of you and your damned pride," she answered angrily, not in the mood to coddle either of them after weeks of what she deemed this insanity. "Neither one of you ever willing to give an inch before the other does. I don't pretend to know what happened, Boss, but ten-to-one, that's what at the center of it all. When will the two of you ever learn, all these games are going to destroy a pretty damned good thing? Huh?"

"You can't destroy what never was, Mildred," he answered dully.

"Oh, don't give me that," she scolded. "I've been watching the two of you for nearly three—"

"Mildred," he interrupted.

"What!?" she fairly shouted into the phone.

"As I told you once before, whatever course our relationship takes has to be decided by Laura and—"

"Then leave me out of it!" she bit out, and slammed down the phone on her end.

He'd stared at the buzzing phone in his hand in utter disbelief for a long time, before resignedly hanging it up. He couldn't recall a single time in these last years when Mildred had hung up on him. His already tenuous mood had grown dark, and hadn't improved in the least by the time he woke midday, his dreams once more visited upon by _her._ Distressed and longing to forget the reasons why, that evening he did something he'd done but a few times in his life: drowned his sorrows in drink.

What a mistake that had been, for his liquor soaked imagination had dared to believe that if perhaps he bedded a woman who reminded him of Laura he could at last rid his system of her once and for all. And what better place for it than where he was now: a sumptuous affair that was as libertine as it was extravagant. Held by a wealthy… er, 'businessman'… at his ten-bedroom mansion perched atop the rocky shores of Saint Aygulf, every room in the house was open to guests to use at their leisure or for their pleasure. There was no dancing around it here, as anyone who was in the know was well-aware Tomas Boucher's parties were about sex. There were but three qualifications to be invited to one of his affairs: You must have money, you must be attractive, and you should be closed mouth about those you met, or canoodled with, while in attendance. Nude, nubile women played in the pool, men whose bodies seemed carved of granite lounged casually on chaises in the buff. It was not an uncommon site to find a couple embroiled in heavy, open foreplay while leaning against statuary, or while playing a round of billiards in the game room. Here, anything went. Wish to have a threesome, foursome… a veritable orgy? Help yourself to the library, as your every comfort will be met there. Wish to swap mates and experience a different flavor on the evening? Help yourself to a room in the pool house. Care to try out two, three different partners on the evening? Choose your guest room. The best champagne and wine flowed freely, there were a bevy of recreational drugs for one's use should someone choose to indulge, and banquet tables were laden heavily with only the finest of foods.

Only a time or two in the past had he attended such a function, which were far more common among the European elite than some might think. In the past, it had been for amusement's sake, not that he hadn't had a sip of the water while in attendance. But, as a general rule, such gatherings were not for him, as the stuffier side of himself found they bordered on vulgar. Yet, that night, as the evening wore on and he moved from pleasantly inebriated to thoroughly soused, he'd been a predator on the prowl, shaking off a slew of offers with disinterest, knowing exactly what he was seeking and intent on finding it.

And, at last he had. A petite woman, with a slim frame and gentle curves, about the age Laura had been when first they'd met, his bed-partner-to-be hadn't been Laura's clone, by any stretch of the imagination. Her shoulder length hair more of a honey brown than auburn; her face, neck and shoulders devoid of that enticing display of freckles; skin not quite so fair; eyes green, not brown. But there was something about the way she lifted her chin when she laughed, tilted her head to the side ever-so-slightly when she smiled, a confidence that showed in her eyes, and in the graceful sway of her slim hips that reminded him much of the woman he was trying to dispel from his thoughts, once and for all. They'd flirted and drank some more there on the terrace overlooking the Med, and gradually he'd made his intent known, as he crowded her personal space, trekking the back of a pair of fingers down her arm. She'd eagerly accepted the unspoken invitation, not at all like his perennially standoffish Miss Holt, he'd mentally noted.

They'd found an empty, clean bedroom for their use, and he'd extended a wordless arm, an invitation to go before him. He'd turned to lock the door, and, shrugging off his tuxedo jacket laid it on the chair, before pivoting to face his temporary paramour, ignoring his head that swum from the quick action. His blood ran hot, and fully south, when he'd found she'd silently slipped out of her gown, to stand before him now, bare but for a pair of heels and a miniscule pair of panties. Memories of the woman he'd loved but had never been permitted to have swirled with the alcohol fueling his brain, and in that moment the woman standing before him became the woman he yearned for. Eagerly, he stepped forward and palmed a breast. Closing his eyes, he recalled the thousands of fantasies he'd had, imaging what those small breasts would feel like beneath his hand.

 _Heaven, that's what!_ his brain screamed now. Delightfully plump, silken softness. He groaned, deep in his throat, and stepped closer still, his other hand tracing the gentle curve of her waist before slipping over a hip to experience the swell of her bottom. His lips seized hers, and he kissed her until she squirmed in his arms, then his lips slipped away to trail down the lithe column of her neck.

"Laura," he murmured, into her ear, as a thumb stroked the peak of a hardening nipple.

"Brigit," the temptress in arms gasped in answer, when he leaned down to take a puckered peak into his mouth.

The singular word had the effect of being doused with a bucket of ice water. His mouth froze over the breast it had been in attendance of, his hand stopped exploring the delicious curve of her bum, and his substantial erection immediately softened then withered. He stood so quickly while releasing his arms from around the woman before him, that she stumbled back a step.

"Mes excuses, Mademoiselle," he apologized, as he crossed the room and picked up his tuxedo jacket. "Je viens de rappeler une conférence transcontinentale téléphonique que je dois prendre part dans trente minutes à partir de maintenant."

He hadn't waited on a reply, leaving the room, descending the stairs, then signaling to one of the taxi's standing by outside the home in the circular drive. When he'd arrived back at the hotel, he'd ordered up a bottle of scotch and had proceeded to drink himself blind.

 _What were you thinking?_ Laura's voice screamed in his head. _Were_ _you even thinking?_

"Wasn't thinkin' a'tall, Miss Holt," he answered aloud. "Feelin'. Should bloody well try it for ye'self sometime. Then again," he held up a finger, as he staggered, "Maybe ye shouldn't. Bloody miserable thing, feeling is, I've learnt."

 _Nice try,_ the voice answered dryly. _Did you honestly think it would go well? Pretending someone else was me?_

"Didn't know what else t' do," he slurred. "Won't get out o' my head, ye won't. Haunting me ye are."

 _It's_ _your_ _imagination,_ _you_ _r dreams._ _I_ _can't control those,_ the voice contested.

"Ah, but ye do," he answered miserably, tossing back the remaining finger of scotch of his glass, then pouring another, sloshing much of the liquor over the side of the glass and onto the floor. "'ave fer years now, ye 'ave. I carry your 'eart with me. I carry it in mine. Whatever is done by me is only yer doin'. Ye are me world, whatever a moon 'as always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is ye."

 _Waxing poetic now, are we?_ she asked, clearly not buying it.

"E.E. Cummings, 'e understood, 'e did. All I ever wanted was ye. Yer me sun, me moon—"

 _You have a funny way of showing it, leaving me as you did,_ she answered derisively.

"No choice. No choice!" he boomed, then put bottle to mouth and took a long draw, glass in his hand forgotten. He moved backwards to sit on the end of the bed, only to find it had moved away, and he landed hard on the floor, holding up the bottle in triumph when it didn't spill, then turned solemn, again. "Why wouldn't ye let me 'ave ye?"

 _A relationship is about more than sex, Mr. Steele,_ she chided.

"Not talkin' 'bout sex. Yer 'eart. Why wouldn't ye give me yer 'eart?" he lamented, toppling over sideways, then splaying out on his back. "Even iffin' I was talkin' 'bout sex, it's all the same. 'A relationship is like a shark. It 'as to move forward or it dies. What we've got on our 'ands is a dead shark.' _Annie Hall,_ Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, MGM, 1977." With those final words his eyes rolled, his head lolled and he passed out…

Waking with the worst hangover of his remembrance the following day, long after the sun had hung high overhead.

Stumbling to the bathroom, he poured four aspirin into his hand then guzzled glass after glass of water, alternating clutching his head and wishing all alcohol to perdition while despairing that even the tips of his hair ached. A cold shower helped some, as did the pot of coffee ordered up from room service.

He rubbed at mouth and face frequently as he drank the bitter brew, while trying to recall the events of the night past. Oh, he remembered well Boucher's party, though if he'd had his druthers it would be that part of evening that was blotted out. He remembered the return to the hotel, the arrival of the bottle of scotch but after that? Not a thing, except for a vague feeling he'd find whatever had occurred disturbing.

That evening had, however, proved a crucial turning point for him. Swearing off hard drink, fast living and easy sex, at least for now, he'd packed up his bags and traveled to Estoril, Portugal. There he became Alec Walker, an international real estate investor and amateur artist who was seeking a healthy dose of solitude, mixed with an occasional night at the tables or an afternoon of sailing. For the first time in weeks, he'd been able to slip into the persona that hadn't been a persona in years: that of Remington Steele. He not only liked the man he'd become across the years, but was proud of that man. Yes, the name was different, but dressed in his own skin, so to speak, he felt no differently than he had when assuming a name for a case. The level of comfort brought with this reclamation was as shocking as it was welcome.

He rented a small, two bedroom, two bath house nestled in the hills above Estoril, which offered all the comforts of what he'd once come to view as home: a large kitchen, a fireplace for cool evenings, and a terrace perched over rocks where he could sit in the evening with a glass of wine, enjoying the view of Estoril spread out below, and the sea beyond and during the day could put pencil to paper in an effort to capture the beauty of the panoramic view. The property's greatest appeal, by far, had been its relative seclusion. More than anything, what he was searching for now was peace.

By day, he concentrated his focus on investments – both stocks on the Exchange in New York and in real estate which offered low investiture but high gain. He'd been dabbling for some time in the same while living in LA and had found he had a natural acumen for both. Reasonable, he supposed, as both ventures required a bit of a gamble, and he'd long been masterful at beating both the house and the odds. And, he continued to keep close counsel with Monroe Henderson, as they worked hand-in-hand on the continual expansion of the electronics business they'd partnered in a couple of years before. None of these endeavors, of course, offered the adrenaline filled rush or sense of accomplishment that his life on the other side of the street or as a detective had, but it would do, at least for now.

When word had reached the streets that Paul Fabrini had arrived back on the Riviera, there had been more than a few, quiet inquiries to determine if he was interested in some 'work.' He'd declined each job summarily and had sent back word that Paul Fabrini, and all his various identities, had retired. It was a different time and he was a different man, and he had no desire to turn back the clock. He couldn't help but think Laura would be stunned by this development, as she'd worried throughout their years of association that one day the lure of his past would trump the present he'd been building with her.

This, too, was another change after that final night in Cannes: he'd stopped trying to eradicate thoughts of Laura from his mind. The heart would want and worry as it pleased, and it seemed his had done both where Laura Holt was concerned for a lifetime. No amount of drink, sex or attempting to will it away would change that simple fact. He loved her beyond reason. He missed her so much he was left aching for her. He'd worried incessantly about her since that first call with Mildred. But the long and short of it was she'd never accept him for who he was, shortcomings and all. There was nothing left but to create another dream of which she wasn't a part.

He'd also stopped pretending that would be easy. So much of who he was now… what he was… had been done by her hand. She'd looked beneath the exterior of the man and had ferreted out every redeeming quality to be found, then had cajoled, soothed, and demanded he live up to the man she knew he could be. The same could be said for the many faults, not nearly as well hidden, which she'd chiseled away at until they'd become so much dust at his feet rather than building blocks of who he was. Despite all the rest, until his end of days, he'd love her for being the first to covet not the flesh, but the man beneath.

Christ, how he wished she'd coveted both enough to have found a way past all her fears, inhibitions, and her demand for perfection, so their end could have been what he'd come to envision, rather than the reality which was.

His anger lingered on, some days burning bright as the hot sun over the desert, while on other days it carried the chill of an artic wind. There were times when the memory of Laura kissing Antony in his flat, on the train, would leave him clenching his fists, jaw twitching, while the image of Laura disappearing into the night with man neither seen nor heard from again until mid the next day would leave his gut clenching, very much as it had the evening it'd happened. He might have found a way past each of those offenses, knowing it was his own actions which had wrought her to take revenge, so to speak, but there was one act that ate at his very soul: Her soft, lilting voice carrying up the stairs to his ears and what she'd said to the bugger:

* * *

 _ **"This really isn't the best time to discuss that, Tony."**_

* * *

The implications had been clear to him: She was a bit busy at the moment, getting ready to consummate their marriage and all that, but she and Antony would be speaking again in the future. Of all the knives she'd thrust, as inadvertent as that one might have been, it had cut the deepest. He'd imagined for a long, long time that crossing that line would be a step not only past all the barriers they'd constructed with their own individual worries and fears, but towards their future… together. Had even fancied that soft words of love would flow freely as they embraced, at last, that this was what they'd always been meant to be. Still, he'd carried forward believing… or hoping was perhaps the more accurate word… that once they'd made love, once he was able to _show_ her all that she was to him, those dreams would take life. Spoiled, all of it, when she'd left the room to answer the call of the phone, and the insult he'd sat aside at the first phone call had taken on a life of its own.

Despite the word from Mildred that Laura had given the blighter an earful then sent him packing, the wound from that night, the wounds from the days prior, still ran deep and raw.

Yet still, injured or not, angry or not, he worried incessantly over how she was fairing.

Three weeks after he'd arrived in Estoril, he'd finally worked up the hutzpah to call Mildred again, prepared for an ear blistering the likes of which he hadn't had in a while. If he'd thought the phone left droning in his ear had been shocking, the foot she'd put down this time had left him stupefied. They'd chatted about the latest championship trophy won by the Dragon Ladies and her date with Bumper, which had an encore performance arriving in a few days before she'd turned the topic of conversation to him.

"You keeping your nose out of trouble, Boss?" she asked, with enough censure in her voice to forewarn of a stern lecture should the answer not suit her.

"Mmmm, I am," he confirmed. "Decided I've gotten a bit long in the tooth for the fast life. Found myself a nice little place in a quiet spot. I've been dabbling a bit more with the market, expanding my real estate portfolio. Not as exciting as being a detective, but then few things are."

"There's a quick fix for that if you're missing it," she reminded.

"Mildred," he drawled her name warningly, then with a rub at his face, dug deep to ask the question he was afraid to know the answer to, because whatever the response it seemed a no win situation: Either Laura was still suffering or she she'd put the pieces together and was moving on, the former leaving him aching for her, the latter longing for her and what could have been. "How is she?"

"Uh uh," she refused, shaking her head, unseen. "I've told you how she's doing, twice, as a matter of fact, and we both know there's only one thing that's gonna stop it. I love you, Boss. But if you want to know how Miss Holt's doing, you're gonna have to pick up the phone and call her or, better yet, be the one who puts a stop to this nonsense and _come home._ " He took to his feet and began to pace, streaking an anxious hand through his hair.

"I _can't_ do that," he protested. Sitting at her kitchen table, Mildred wrung her hands. She hated the despair, the desperation she clearly heard in his voice. He was hurting as much as Miss Holt and she was powerless to do anything about it other than to try and force one of their hands.

"I won't betray her confidence for you, any more than I'd betray yours for her. Period." She took a deep breath and took out the big guns. She sighed dramatically, for presentation's sake. "I guess I was wrong about you, Chief." _That_ statement made his feet stop in place and his head jerk up.

"How is that, Mildred?"

"Three months ago, even with all the nutty stuff going on, I'd have sworn on a stack of Bibles that you'd lay down your life for Miss Holt. It turns out your pride means more to you than her well-being. " She paused at length then added quite sincerely. "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm ashamed of you. Goodnight, Boss."

With that she disconnected the phone and left him reeling. Mildred's approval of him had long been second in importance to that of only Laura.

The call had marked the beginning of a period of real introspection for him. For the most part, with the exception of his anger and outrage… and his unconscious nightly worrying over Laura… he'd done what he'd done his entire lifetime when confronted with emotionally charged situations: he'd fled, and for the first time in many years that meant physically as well as mentally.

It had been too… simply too much. Laura had taught him over the years how to stand and fight, to risk believing he'd come out right side up by facing adversity head on, but the events which had surrounded him – one after another after another after yet another – went beyond mere adversity. From the day the INS had appeared until the day he walked out of Ashford Castle it hadn't… stopped. That it had come on the heels of being so close….

When they'd returned from Bernice's wedding in New York, they'd been shocked to find out they were both presumed dead. That had been… amusing… in as much as it had meant he and Laura surviving on the streets for two days on nothing more than their wits. It had been one of those rare times when he'd taken lead while she had, on occasion, followed blindly. The entire experience of having to scrap for their meals, to find shelter in unique places, had drawn them even closer together. How could it not when they'd not only banded together for survival and to solve the case of their mysterious deaths, but when she'd also chosen _him_ over the creature comforts of home?

* * *

" _ **Stop hogging the bed…"**_

* * *

It had meant the world to him and would be remembered as one of the most meaningful moments of his life. Yes, yes, there was still his old friend Freddy's murder to be solved. There was still a nasty bookie to avoid lest they wished to sleep with the fishes ( _The Godfather_ , Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Paramount, 1972). But through it all, he and Laura had been together, and that was what had mattered most to him.

Then, on the night the case had been put to bed and they'd risen like a Phoenix from the ashes, they'd lay before the fireplace in his flat, sipping champagne and talking as they were inclined to do. Laughter, intermingled with sweet kisses, which had become more tantalizing as the night had gone on. Somewhere towards eleven, when on a work night she'd normally stand prepared to leave, she'd instead turned to her side. At the tug of his hand by hers, he closed in, folding his body around hers, tucking her backside into his front. He'd stroked and soothed arms, shoulders, hair and they spoke until she drifted off to sleep, willingly, in his arms. It had been pure bliss to sleep there on the living room floor of his flat, snuggled up to her warmth, her smell surrounding him until the sun rose. When they'd awakened the next morning, he'd seen not a spark of regret in her eyes, not a single hint she was about to hide back behind those walls. Instead, when she'd rolled over to face him, her eyes had glimmered with warmth, her hand had stroked his beard shadowed cheek, then she had kissed him with intent, letting him know her spending the night sleeping in his arms hadn't been an accident, but done with purpose.

She'd left, of course, nothing had come of it… unless by nothing you excluded the giant step ahead they'd taken that night by her want and will. For a couple who'd spent the majority of their waking hours together in the years before, they now began spending all their time together. Several nights she'd dozed off on the couch snuggled against him as they watched a movie together, without the prerequisite 'wake me at so-or-so' time to go home speech, only leaving when she'd woken of her own accord. Lips no longer contained themselves only to other lips, but traveled jaws, necks, teeth nibbled upon earlobes, mouths suckled, tongues tasted bared collarbones. Neither hands nor mouth had traveled south of that line of demarcation – at least not to pertinent areas – but hands freely roamed backs, arms, sides. They'd stopped bothering, all together, to pretend they weren't both aware they'd be crossing that line into the bedroom soon… very, very soon.

Then, two days before Vinnie Dodd had fallen into their laps, while Laura had stepped out of the office to do some legwork, Estelle Becker had appeared. With her appearance, he vaguely recalled a letter he'd received the day he and Laura were preparing to leave for New York., as he'd been scrambling to get out the door. It still sat in the drawer of his credenza, unread. He sat there while Becker explained some… 'irregularities'… regarding his passport had drawn into question if he was in the United States illegally. A tip, she said, of the anonymous sort. However, regardless of where the tip had originated, he'd either need to clear up the irregularities, provide proof of his legal right to be in the United States… or he'd be deported nine days hence. And, in the course of a twenty minute conversation he'd watch his world tilt sideways. He and Laura had been on the verge of having everything he'd dreamt about, hoped she'd dreamt about as well, and there it was.

Why had he expected any less? Hadn't he spent a lifetime learning to count on nothing, believing that nothing good was meant for him? He was, after all, the man not entitled to a name, a childhood home, parents who loved him, any of those things most received from the moment of their first breath. A lifetime spent changing his name, moving on when things went south, as they always seemed to do. Why? Why would he not expect the same to happen now, when all his hopes were there at his fingertips, ready for him to reach out, touch, claim as his own?

Three choices at his disposal, all impossible. To clear up the irregularities on the passport would mean either producing an Irish birth certificate, which he'd never had, or the American one Laura had contrived for him. If the latter was proven falsified, it'd be her proverbial neck on the line, rendering it not even an option. As for the second? There was no 'proof' to be had. He'd arrived as Ben Pierson, and needless to say, hadn't applied for a visa, he'd only devised a plan to steal the Royal Lavulite. What self-respecting thief would announce his presence to the government of the United States? The very idea was nearly laughable. Certainly, Laura hadn't applied for a visa for her shadow man, which meant only deportation remained.

Deportation… and stark, raving, fear. Fear of losing all that had come to matter most to him, and certainly first among all those things was a petite young woman with amber eyes and a fiery temper.

And from there, disastrous decision making. Impetuous. Desperate. Foolish. Hurtful, devastating, betrayal. Even now, sipping a glass of wine on the terrace in Estoril, he'd no idea what he'd been thinking. That he couldn't go to Laura, not when it was his past – his damned past, as she'd once put it – coming back to haunt them? That he couldn't stomach seeing that disappointed, censuring look in her eyes, watch her step back, especially now? Even worse, that sick, frightened look when she believed being left was imminent? He didn't know, maybe all of the above.

Crossing the terrace, he leaned on the wrought iron railing and stared at the sea beyond.

He did know why, when he'd made the decision marriage was the only solution, he hadn't asked Laura to be his bride: paralyzing fear that she'd either refuse him, or if she'd agreed, she'd relegate their relationship from there forward as nothing but business. The first? It would have been a crushing blow: when he needed her most, she'd turned him away. He couldn't have… borne that. And the second? He couldn't have lived with it. Better to be sent packing by the INS than to not have her, the hope her. So to save his hopes, his heart, he'd crushed hers instead.

 _Bloody buggering bastard,_ he cursed himself now. He could see it – the flashes of hurt in those brown eyes he'd adored so long… the questions she'd refused to ask. Wrapped in anger, outrage, all of it, but there it had been nevertheless.

Guilt had come first, but then, out of nowhere, anger. Anger that she'd discovered his plan, the marriage he'd never meant her to know of. Anger that he couldn't count on her for help, non-judgmental support in his hour of need. Anger that he didn't feel he could ask her to be the one beside him at that altar. Anger, as well… that _she_ was angry.

 _Which made you act like a fecking prick_ , he admitted.

Insult piled on top of callous disregard and topped off with the unforgiveable, allowing her to fend for herself against a man twice her size. _Sitting down, flicking at your tux, feigning amusement none the less_ , he chastised himself. His behavior had been deplorable, unforgiveable and he'd made no attempt at an apology. Was it of little surprise, then, that after she'd _still_ agreed to participate in the marriage farce for the INS's show, she'd taken a few well-placed jabs of her own, attributing him the characteristics of her mythical Steele, mockingly, making sure he understood he was not a one of those?

His own doing, that. Had he played it straight from the time she'd arrived at the… He shook his head and stopped that thought. _Had you played it straight from the start, old sport._

It had taken weeks, but he'd dissected each of his acts, each of hers in those days between the INS's arrival and his own departure, holding himself accountable for his actions, and, sometimes with ease, other times with tremendous effort, had forgiven her for most of her actions. But it had settled nothing, because there were two acts committed by her, beyond Roselli, that he didn't know if he'd ever be able to understand, or forgive her for.

He hadn't even realized how betrayed he felt over her keeping the secret of Daniel's revelations to herself until he'd begun this journey of self-examination. Hell, he'd yet to even take the time to truly grieve his father's loss. Another thing, he supposed, he'd taken refuge from in those weeks of traveling, gambling, and carousing. He held a good deal of anger towards his father, outrage, and he'd been left with nowhere to release it… not even a grave at which to rage. He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels in his kitchen. _Bloody hell, I haven't even settled his estate yet_ , he reminded himself.

But for Laura… Laura!... the woman who was constantly preaching full disclosure, no secrets, to keep the truth of Daniel's relationship from him? If she'd come to him, he wouldn't have been blindsided by Daniel's death. Even now, he was left shaking his head, wondering what justification she'd had to use to leave him open to that – Daniel… his father… dying right in front of him, when he'd been unaware he was even sick. How much precious little time might he have had with Daniel to find out what he'd waited a lifetime to know if she'd come to him? For Christ's sake, he might know his name at this very minute, might have a birth certificate in his hand.

And then there was what she'd said to him in that jail cell in Mexico.

* * *

 _ **"I feel like a fool calling you Mr. Steele or Remington at a time like this. Why don't you have a real name like everybody else?"**_

* * *

He'd been insulted, certainly, when she uttered the words, for she better than anyone else in his life understood the lifelong angst which had followed him due to this very shortcoming, but much like he'd missed the import of her words in the jungle when she suggested they might consider going their separate ways, he'd not understood the subtext of her words then, either. It was only on that final night her message had finally been decoded by the furthest recesses of his mind: In spite of all his efforts… despite all the years he'd been with her, he would always be the man with no name to her. That was something he simply couldn't live with.

Now, if he could only find a way to move forward when he missed her, despite it all, and only wished to go back.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Surreptitiously looking down the right side of the hallway, then the left, Laura slipped her lock pick set from her purse and selected the pick she'd need for the task at hand. She would have preferred the cover of night in which to conduct her illegal forays into the office of Russell Conrad, accountant, but she was determined to make up for her oversight. Had she been thinking clearly, she would have realized long before now that Conrad likely kept a duplicate set of books hidden in the bowels of his office somewhere. Books that would prove he'd been creating falsified medical bills, presenting them to his elderly clients as monies owed then siphoning those 'payments' into his own accounts. If not, proof of who he was into money for, and she could take it from there.

She was off her game, preoccupied, and it had made her miss the obvious. The case had been floundering for days because of it. Yes, she'd thought to have Mildred conduct a deep background on Conrad's personal finances: bank accounts, holdings, investments, properties… anywhere he might hide his ill-gotten gains. Her trusted secretary and investigator had come up with nothing irregular, which led her to suspect Conrad might be in trouble himself – owing the wrong people a significant amount of money, stealing to get it. But without Remington' street contacts, that information was hard to come by. She didn't have the ins he'd had, and the people he'd introduced her to across the years, those in the know, still distrusted 'Mary Magdalene,' as Weasel was prone to calling her.

She snorted softly, though a smile never reached her lips. This was the type of case that touched Remington's soft side, righting injustice done against the most vulnerable. He'd always had a particular loathing for anyone who would take advantage, put at risk, children, the elderly. Veronica, Maxine, little Caruso.

The latch of the door released and with a final look down each side of the hallway, she slipped inside. The office reflected the seediness of the building that housed it: grey-green concrete floors; nicotine tinged orange-yellow walls that were once likely white; a metal desk, with two metal and cloth chairs in front of it; a nicked-up bookshelf; a few non-descript paintings on the wall. Clearly not a successful accountant which is how people like her clients could afford to hire him to allegedly look after their interests.

The bookshelf yielded nothing of interest, and none of the paintings disguised a safe. Turning her attention to the desk, she skimmed through the paperwork found in each drawer, as well as the ledger she'd unearthed. While she'd have felt a bit better having Mildred go through it, she didn't personally see anything amiss and thereby could only assume these were the cooked books. Returning it to the drawer, she continued to the next below. She shook her head in frustration: a few blank envelopes, a petty cash box with twenty-six dollars and eighty-four cents in it. It was only as she closed the drawer that she saw the slight scraping at the backside of its interior. Removing the contents again, she examined the faux bottom then searched for a letter opener, anything that would allow her to pry it up. Coming up empty, she retrieved her lock picks from her case. Two minutes later, a rare smile lit her face.

Lifting the leather-bound book from the drawer, she perched it on the lap formed by her legs in the squat she was currently in. The finding was just another reminder of how Remington's presence in the business, in her life, had made her all the more effective as a detective. The skills, the knowledge, he'd picked up on the shady side of the street had not only made them an invincible team, but had only enhanced her natural instincts. Four years before, she wouldn't have even connected those minute scratches with a false drawer.

"Bingo…" she whispered, when she flipped through the ledger. Mildred would have a field day with the information contained within. Placing it on the top of the desk, she focused on reseating the false bottom. Once all was placed back in the drawer she stood…

And the lights went out.

* * *

Laura woke coughing, the room hazy. It took several seconds for her dazed mind to unravel what was happening around her. The heat, the acrid air burning her lungs with each breath, the soft crackling coming from the opposite side of the desk. On all fours, she scrambled across the floor towards the door, her hand scorching when she tried the knob. She yanked her hand back searching through the darkening, smoke filled room for another exit. _Window_ , her mind shouted at her. Crawling back across the room, pantyhose snagging, knees protesting, she dragged herself up to her feet, coughing, eyes watering and worked the latch until it gave. Boosting herself up, she kicked loose the screen while taking huge, gulping breaths of air.

Her memory flashed back to another fire. She and Remington trapped. Him using an old flimsy mattress as though it were a magic carpet, she clinging to his back. She gave her head a quick shake, then peered down towards the concrete below. She did quick calculations: four stories up, ceiling height in the office roughly ten feet, window three feet off the ground. Thirty-three, thirty-five feet max. She'd _fallen_ five stories from Remington's terrace and had sustained barely a scratch. _With the bushes cushioning your fall,_ a voice niggled in the back of her head.

She listened and with nary a siren yet to be heard, accepted there was no other choice to be had. Turning, she lowered herself over the edge, fingers clinging to the window ledge. The vision of her hanging once before, her fingertips the only thing between her and the ground below filled her head. Only then a hand had been desperately reaching for hers, and when that hand had grasped hers in the span of a heartbeat she'd felt safe.

Closing her eyes, her last thought as she let go was the single word spoken when they'd flown that mattress.

 _Geronimo._

* * *

Four days later, Mildred walked into Remington's office without a knock or invitation and found the younger woman sitting on the window sill, looking out over the city. The case had been wrapped up two days prior, with both Conrad and a high-level drug dealer behind bars. It had not been Conrad, after all, who'd knocked her out and left her to die in the fire that had been set… but her death was meant to be a message to him: what happened to your secretary will happen to you next. It had occurred to her she should be annoyed that her would be murderer had assumed she was the secretary, by the mere basis of her gender, but she couldn't rally the effort. With a good bluff and a healthy dose of his Howdy Doody routine, Jarvis had convinced Conrad to confess the embezzlement of clients' funds when faced with the alternative of being charged with attempted murder. So, the case was closed and she'd refused any new client interviews since her release from the hospital over the weekend.

Mildred watched over her boss for several minutes before she closed the office door behind her, and crossing the room, sat in one of the chairs in front of Remington's desk.

"Don't you think it's about time you talked about it, honey?" she finally asked, breaking the silence. She'd have thought Laura hadn't heard her, if not for her long, deep inhale, the shuddering release of that breath and the hand that lifted to press against her chest.

 _A hundred and thirty-three days_ ,the thought repeated itself. For five days, the number of days since last she'd seen him, heard his voice, _touched him_ , had been on a continual loop in her head. A hundred and thirty-three days and it hadn't gotten any easier than it had been the night he'd walked away. If anything, it had grown all the more difficult over the last week. Somewhere along the line, she didn't even know when, the thought had taken hold that if there was any hope, any whatsoever, of him reaching out to her, it would be now. Accordingly, she'd become… distracted… missing out on the most obvious of steps in the case she was working. Preoccupied enough with thoughts of him, that she'd never heard the door in that office open, had never realized someone was behind her, that she was in jeopardy.

She'd escaped relatively unscathed. A concussion and smoke inhalation, for which she'd been kept in the hospital overnight. A mild sprain of her left ankle. Two cracked ribs, some decent lacerations on the palms of her hands, on her knees, an impressive bruise on her right cheekbone, from when she'd face-planted against parking stop and ground after her ankle had turned. Wounds, she couldn't help but believe, she wouldn't have had at all if she'd not been so preoccupied with thoughts of him… or if he'd been there.

"He's not coming back, is he, Mildred?" It was really a rhetorical question, she hadn't expected an answer.

"I don't know, hon," Mildred answered, lifting her hands and dropping them. "Is there a reason the Boss might think he _can't_ come home?" Laura's only answer to that was another long sigh, and to lean the side of her face against the cool window, affirming the answer Mildred already knew. "Miss Holt, I gotta ask, what do you want?"

"What do you _think_ I want, Mildred?" she questioned instead.

"Then what are you gonna do about it?" Mildred challenged. Laura turned and looked at the older woman.

"What am I …?" The question took her to her feet to pace. "What _can_ I do, Mildred?" she defended. "I don't know where he is, what name he's using. I have absolutely nothing to go on!"

"Don't you?" Mildred argued back. "Who helped him clear out his place last year when he pulled his disappearing act? Maybe you should start there." Laura froze in place at the suggestion. She was so still, so long, Mildred grew nervous, tapping her foot, waiting for some sign from the younger woman on what she was going to do. Then suddenly she was a flurry of activity, stumble-hopping on her injured ankle across Remington's office and into her own. She returned carrying her purse, with a purposeful glint in her eyes that Mildred hadn't seen for months now.

"I'll be back," she informed Mildred, then left Remington's office and the Agency.

Only when Mildred was sure the coast was clear did she stand to pick up the phone on Remington's desk. Punching in a number, she waited for an answer, then for Monroe to pick up when the call was transferred to his office.

"She's heading in your direction," Mildred forewarned.

Three and a half months earlier, when Mildred had dropped off Remington's ledgers along with the keys to the Auburn and his flat, she and Monroe had commiserated over current events. 'Mick" hadn't told Monroe what had made him sever his ties with LA and, more specifically Laura, but they'd been friends for a decade and a half and Monroe had understood, without asking, whatever it was had cut his old mate to the core. Mildred couldn't help but agree with that assessment and had filled him in on Laura's behavior since the morning she'd gotten into the car at Ashford Castle. After Laura's nearly catastrophic accident the Friday prior, Mildred had sought the man out again. Given Mick still hadn't found his peace and Laura's self-destructive bent of late, they'd conspired together: It was time to bring the two together so that they could either work things out or put an end to things once and for all before one, or both, self-destructed. It was a risky venture, Monroe violating Remington's trust, Mildred Laura's, not to mention possibly orchestrating an explosion between Laura and Remington neither were prepared for.

"Excellent. I shall endeavor to put on a show worthy of Mick himself," Monroe grinned, leaning back in his chair. "I will call when she departs so you may be prepared."

Mildred might have had an opportunity to prepare herself for Laura's return, but Monroe had been… shaken… when Laura appeared in his doorway. Mick, Laura, he and his lady of choice had often made dinner a foursome over the last year. He'd found himself a bit besotted with Laura at one point, even relaying to Mick a time or three that he was fortunate to have found her first. The woman he'd come to know was an intelligent, quick witted, mischievous, spitfire of a woman, with glowing skin, bright eyes and a quick smile whereas the woman who walked through that door was a ghost of her former self. At least in her action she showed some of her old bravado, walking in, dropping her purse on his desk, then leaning against hands pressed on the edge of the desk, looked him in the eye.

"I need to know where he is, Monroe," Laura informed him, getting straight to the point.

"You assume I myself know," Monroe rejoined.

"Don't," she told him, pushing away from his desk, her fingers lifting to worry a brow. "Just… don't… lie to me. If there's anyone _Mick_ would keep abreast of his travels, it's you. You share a business interest. He's put you in charge of his belongings, again, evidently, given his apartment has been emptied out, and the Auburn…" she inhaled sharply, "… is missing. You're one of the few people he's ever trusted, so _please_ don't insult me by pretending you don't know where he is!"

"If this were true, what incentive would I have to divulge that information to you, betraying my friend's confidence in the process?" he challenged. "If Mick wished you to know where he was, he would have contacted you, would he not?" He'd found he didn't need to feign his displeasure, his reluctance. The memory of Mick's voice, the resignation, the… despondent tone it would often take… fueling his fire. Laura lifted both hands in the air and dropped them, and then, as though having second thoughts, raised them again to press fingertips to forehead.

"I won't pretend to know what Mick may…" she dropped her hands again on a heavy exhale "…or may not have told you about those… days… before he left. We… hurt… one another," she turned to face the wall, tipping her head back to gaze at the ceiling, her voice lowering to a near whisper, "Terribly. But neither of us is fully to blame nor completely blameless." She considered the ceiling at length, found her resolve and turned to face him. "I need to see him. We _both_ need to know we've tried everything we possibly can to fix the harm we've done to _each other_ and, if that fails, then at least we have closure. Neither Mick nor I have that right now. And if that's not reason enough for you to divulge where he is then consider this: We're married." She laughed, a bit hysterically. "Forged license, fake blood tests or not, it doesn't seem to matter when the _acting_ captain of the vessel presides over the ceremony in international waters." She took some enjoyment in the stupefied look on Monroe's face. "Mick and I need to either work things out so that we can move _forward_ together, or, if that fails, I need him to sign the divorce papers so we can move on." Monroe picked up a pen from his desk and tapped it on the blotter several times as he stared at it. _Married? Ah, to be a fly on the wall when Mick is informed of such!_

"And what, might I inquire," he waved the pen in in the air, then pointed it in her direction, "are your hopes for this little… reunion?" Her shoulders slumped and she tilted her head back to regard the ceiling again. With a shake of her head, she looked at him, every bit of the sadness that had followed her these last months reflected in her eyes.

"What do you _think_ I want? You've spent a lot of time with Mick and I this last year, do you even really have to ask?" He tapped is fingers together as he pretended to ponder his decision, then reached for the memo pad next to him and scribbled on it.

"Mick is in Aruba on holiday." He handed her the slip of paper. "The resort he's staying at." Her hand was shaking as she took the note from him, her relief so profound.

"Thank you," she told him sincerely, then grabbed her purse and strode purposefully towards the door.

"Laura," he called. She stopped in the doorway and turned to look at him, a questioning look on her face. "If you're so fortunate for him to give you both the opportunity to resolve this… matter, he won't do it again. Use this chance wisely, for I can promise you, knowing Mick as I do, it will be your last." She gave a sharp nod of her head, and departed.

 _I know,_ she answered him silently.

* * *

Laura stopped outside of the entrance to the pool bar and took a deep breath, smoothing her hands over her hips while doing so. Looking down, she gave her outfit one last, critical assessment. A snug fitting, off the shoulder, white cotton tunic which left her shoulders bared, coupled with a long, flowing, lightweight, wrap around skirt, also white, with thin strands of silver woven in a vertical throughout it. The length of the skirt was a necessity, camouflaging the healing wounds on her knees as well as the fact she was wearing flats, not heals – an impossibility with her wrapped ankle. Her makeup concealed the bruising on her cheek, thanks to a practiced hand, but there was little she could do to hide the wounds on her palms, save keeping them out of sight as much as possible. She'd pulled her hair back in a French braid, tying the end with a white bow, threaded with silver to complement her skirt. Releasing a short puff of air, she acknowledged it would have to do. Closing her eyes, she took one last, deep, settling breath, then with a sharp nod, stepped into the bar.

The bar had proved devoid of her missing partner, so she'd meandered out into the vast pool area, where evening festivities were going full force, drinks flowing, people mingling and a live reggae band playing where they'd been tucked off to the side near the beach. She wandered through the throngs of people, alert eyes scanning for the familiar. At last, she found him, leaning against a railing while conversing with a stunning brunette. Her heart raced at her first sight of Remington in nearly four and a half months, and she found her knees a bit wobbly beneath her as the need to be near him pummeled her, stealing her breath. Since she'd acquired his location from Monroe, she'd been battling the nearly paralyzing fear he'd take one look at her and walk away, never giving her… them… a chance. Fifteen feet away from him, she stopped to gather herself, closing her eyes and patting her stomach several times.

 _Please_ , she prayed silently.

Then opened her eyes.

(TBC)


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Remington leaned his backside against the railing, sipping a tall, cool pina colada, as he watched over the gathering hoards at the poolside party while listening half-heartedly to the sloe-eyed buxom brunette attempting to garner his attention for the evening. His long sleeve, white button down, gauze shirt billowed slightly in the mild wind blowing in off the Caribbean. The night was balmy, the mood festive, yet he found himself resisting the impulse to call it a night and return to his room.

Three days prior, feeling… unsettled… as memories from days past converged on him, he'd decided to take a week's holiday in Aruba. He'd always enjoyed the mild climate, azure waters and tranquility the island offered – along with a healthy dose of the night life and casinos, should one choose to partake, which he would of both. Anything to keep himself distracted from his thoughts, his memories, which was the very reason he was in attendance at the party this evening. He neither felt particularly festive, nor much inclined to take up the offer the young woman in front of him was clearly making. Even now, as he nodded at whatever it was Janine… Jaquelyn… no, Jasmine, he reminded himself... had been going on about, she reached out to lay her hand on his chest while looking up at him from under her lashes.

He was realizing the impossibility of it all, questioning if, perhaps, he'd have been better off remaining in Estoril. At least there, he could preoccupy himself with cooking in his kitchen or by filling page after page in his sketchbook as he sat on the terrace at the back of his house. But he'd given a nod to the truth: If he didn't act, didn't do _something_ to turn the tides of his thoughts, he'd be dialing an all too familiar number on the phone or would be booking passage to Los Angeles and _that_ couldn't happen.

Good god, he missed her. As pointless as it was, it was also indisputable. He longed for the lilt of her voice to fill his ears; the intoxicating scent of honeysuckle, sunshine and grass that was uniquely her; the touch of her small hand as it stroked his arm; the sight of her shimmering brown eyes gazing up at him while a dimple peeked out; and her sweet taste… Christ, how he missed the sweetness of her taste. His entire being vibrated, blood simmered from the memory, from the need. Casting the thought away, he forced himself to remember why he was here and turned his attention to the woman before him.

"Do you think you might wish to accompany me?" Jasmine was asking him, with a caress of her hand against his chest. He searched his mind. _Ah, yes, a day taking to the water on her friend's yacht. Check_.

"I might be persuaded," he smiled down at the woman, even knowing he'd be nothing of the sort. He was already imaging he'd be on a flight the next morning, returning to his little house perched in the hills. If he couldn't run from the memories, may as well be haunted by them in quiet solitude. Jasmine took his consideration of the idea as an invitation to press further. Stepping to him, she slid her hands up his chest, over his shoulders, clasping them at the back of his neck. He lifted his hands to extract himself when a woman standing less than twenty feet away, eyes closed, hand to her stomach caught his eyes.

His heart pounded painfully in his chest and his body reacted viscerally to seeing Laura for the first time since that night at Ashford. For a split second, he wondered if he'd somehow conjured her, his thoughts as centered on her as they'd been. But a shake of his head, a squeeze of his eyes, failed to make her image go away. Like a film on fast forward, clips of their years together flashed through his mind, stopping on the image of her and Roselli on that train to port. Anger and hurt so raw and pure vanquished the warmth and hope that surrounded him in a heartbeat. With thought of nothing more than inflicting on her some of what she had on him, if it even mattered to _her_ at all, as Laura's eyes opened, his head descended and he claimed the lips Jasmine had been openly inviting him to partake of. He devoured the woman's mouth, one hand sliding up her back to cup then stroke her neck while the other slid downward to caress the small of her back, the start of the slope leading to her rounded bottom. He dared to open his eyes, to slant them towards Laura, and found her so still he couldn't even see her chest rising and falling as she breathed, her devastated brown eyes fastened upon him and the woman in his arms.

 _Good,_ was his only thought.

Laura absorbed the performance like the blow it was meant to be, then, for an instant, the temper that had been muted the last months flared. Digging into her purse, she pulled out the papers waiting there, then closed the distance between them, slapping the papers against his chest. Surprised, the woman he'd been kissing stepped backwards and to his right, while Remington's hand automatically grabbed the papers.

"Consider yourself served, _Mr. Steele_ ," her voice was cold as ice, his name spoken derisively. With not another word spoken, she spun on her heel and stormed away. Stunned by the venom with which she'd spoken and her abrupt departure after only five words, he folded open the papers. _Petition for Divorce? What in the bloody hell is the woman about this time?_

"Do you know that woman?" Jasmine inquired, with a sniff. "She's terribly rude."

"It seems my _wife_ gets a bit testy when she finds me kissing another woman," he acknowledged absently. "If you'll excuse me." He scanned the area and found Laura hustling along the side of the pool towards the bar, and took off in a sprint after her. He reached her right before she rounded the end of the expansive pool, grabbing her by the arm to halt her. She yanked her arm away, but while she kept her back to him, didn't attempt to leave.

"What kind of game are you playing at, Miss Holt?" he demanded, angrily. "A Petition for Divorce? Need I remind you our alleged marriage is not worth the paper on which it's recorded?" She gave a sharp retort of a laugh at that and turned to face him.

"Yet the immigration attorney I hired disagrees," she answered her voice hard as nails. "The ceremony was held in international waters, and as such _maritime_ law applies. Should we have expected anything less? Have one of your plots, your ploys, your gambits, ever worked out as planned?" His anger stalled, as he tried to process what she was saying.

"Are you telling me we're truly and _legally wed?_ " he asked, holding up the papers in the air, thoroughly dumbfounded. She crossed her arms and tipped up her chin, defiantly.

"I am, at least." She flicked the papers with a finger, then ordered, "Sign the papers, so we can forget _any_ of this ever happened." With that she strode away, concealing her quaking hands and trying to project a cool strength she didn't feel. The imperiousness of her directive as well as what it seemed to imply had his blood boiling again.

"I'll give it some thought," he called to her back. His jaw clenched and the muscle spasmed beneath his cheek. She stopped in her tracks, fists clenching at her sides, and tilted her head back, blinking at the evening sky. His words were the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.

"How long?" she asked, her back remaining to him.

"Can't say I've ever seen myself as playing the role of divorcee. I'm sure you'll agree it's a decision one should—"

"How long do you intend to punish me for being human?" she asked quietly, turning and approaching him. "Yes, I made some mistakes… some _big_ mistakes and I _deeply_ regret them. Yes, I hurt you, and you have no idea _how sorry_ I am for that. In one day…" she shook her head vehemently, "… in a matter of less than _two hours_ I compromised everything… _everything_ … I knew myself to be and placed _everything_ I had worked my entire life for _on the line_ for a man who didn't _trust me_ enough to come to me… who _lied_ to me, _time and time again_ … who left me to fend for myself on a dangerous case while he perpetuated _yet another_ con… and who chose to turn to another woman _instead of me_ when he was in trouble _,"_ her voice cracked on the last, and she fingered away the tears she didn't give a damn if they were dripping. The quick kick in the shin by a guilty conscience left him stepping towards her.

"Laura—"

"No," she nearly shouted while holding up a hand at him. "You said what you needed to in Ireland. It's my turn now." He held up a hand in silent agreement, before shoving both hands in his pockets and shifting uncomfortably. "You said you changed who you were, what you were for me. And I haven't done the same for you? Everything I had promised myself I would _never_ do, I have done _for_ or _because of_ you. I entrusted a conman, a thief, that I had barely known for minutes – and had lied to me the majority of that time – with the role of Remington Steele, risking every penny I had to my name, my reputation, my _dream_ on an instinct. I chose to trust you, to _partner_ with you, despite Murphy's protests, knowing eventually he'd have no choice but to move on. I have stood by you, _fought_ for you time and time again, when all the evidence said I shouldn't and most people would have abandoned you to find a way out on your own." Swiping at her eyes again, she wrapped her arms around herself before speaking again.

"I had promised myself after Wilson that I'd never allow myself to get in too deep again." She puffed out a single laugh, then pressed her hand to mouth while she gathered herself. "I was in too deep from almost the beginning with you. I did my best to…" she shook her head "…until I gave up, gave in! I allowed myself to _trust you_ , to _trust in us_ , especially after we _agreed_ we wanted to _move forward together_." She sucked in a deep, sharp breath, recalling the way she'd felt when she'd discovered his plan, still disbelieving, until she walked through the doors of the church and found him standing at the altar with Clarissa. No matter how many times that particular memory came to her, it didn't lose its potency, its ability to wound. Seeing Remington take a step to her, she held up both hands, stopping him again.

"You had to know what marrying Clarissa would do to me, _but you didn't care._ " He cringed at the accusation and reached out again.

"Laura—"

"Don't!" She slapped away his hands, then pressed her fingers to her forehead. His face pinched with distress. "You had to know when I walked into that church… _but you didn't care_. If anything, you… you… you… mocked me, humiliated me, punished me… _blamed me!_ " Her tears had stopped, and slowly, as she recalled what he'd done that afternoon, her anger began to pique again. "For what? _I_ hadn't done anything." She flung two arms wide. " _I_ hadn't lied to _you. I_ hadn't turned to another man instead of to you." Her eyes lit with fire. "I _married you_ in spite of the lies, in spite of _your betrayal_. Despite what _you'd done,_ I _kept you safe_ , did _whatever_ it took to keep _you here with me_." In that moment, all the hurt, desolation, loneliness and despair she been drowning in since he'd left, swirled together to become a very real and living thing. Her fury whirled around her, like a violent storm, threatening to destroy all in its wake.

"Did I hurt you by what I did with Tony? _Yes_ , I did. Did I do it _intentionally_? _Yes_ , I did. Do I feel badly for that? _Yes_ , I do! But let me tell you something, _Mr. Steele,"_ she reached out and jabbed a finger into his chest, shocking him, "Until you find me in bed _screwing_ the man or at the altar _marrying_ him," another jab landed on his sternum, making him flinch and take a step back, "You have no idea, _no idea,_ what _you_ did to _me_!" Another jab landed, forcing him another step back. "I might have deserved your anger for the mistakes I made, but did I deserve some of the things you said to me? And now, after _months_ of waiting..." she shook off the words, refusing to give him the satisfaction, "And now, you threaten to hold me hostage to a marriage that you never wanted with me in the first place?! Haven't I been punished enough for being what you've always encourage me to be: human?" Snatching the papers from his pocket where he'd stuck them, she slapped them against his chest. "Sign the papers, Mr. Steele, so I can move on with my life, like you have clearly done with yours!" He grabbed the papers with one hand and reached towards her with the other, grasping her arm.

"And if that's not what I want?" he challenged.

Her blood roared in her ears at the perceived threat he'd keep her tied to him as long as it suited his whim and will. Yanking her arm from his grip, with a growl of utter outrage, she planted both hands on his chest and shoved him away from her, then turned on her heel and fled before she was tempted to inflict far more damage.

Remington teetered on the side of the pool, arms flailing uselessly, before he toppled backwards and found himself fully submerged. He came up sputtering and indignant until he heard laughter around him, and many, amused faces watching the spectacle before them. With a laugh of his own, he gave them a wave of his hand, before swimming to the edge of the pool and hauling himself out.

One thing was certain, if Laura wished for him to sign those divorce papers, they'd have to dry off first. The thought bemused him until he looked around the pool area for his "wife", and there was no trace of her to be found.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Remington stroked a hand through his hair in frustration as he walked through the door into his hotel room and tossed the key onto his bed. He'd searched the grounds of the resort high and low and had had no success, whatsoever, in locating the elusive Miss Holt. Unbuttoning his shirt, he pulled it off and draped it over the shower rod in the bathroom as his thoughts wandered.

For the first time in months he felt fully… alive. The instant his eyes had settled on Laura, his blood had hummed, his heart had pounded and, in that split second before anger had set in? Peace. There was an irony in that, certainly: the very woman who could leave his heart in tatters… and had on more than one occasion during their years of association… was the one person who had ever been able to soothe that very same heart through a simple touch, or merely by her presence. He admitted to himself, now, that he'd been a bloody fool to believe he could walk away, so easily start a new life when the only life he'd been able to envision for years was the one with her in it… central to it.

He rubbed a hand across his face, then held it in place over his mouth. The simple truth was he missed it, every last bloody bit of it: the flat where he'd lived for nearly four years, the first place of any permanency he'd ever know; the Auburn he cherished; the job he not only enjoyed, but which left a man with a sense of purpose. But most of all, his time with Laura, be it verbally jousting over a case, ducking bullets while they were in pursuit of a suspect, stealing kisses in the office, eating dinner at Chez Rives, quiet nights spent at home before the fire, or talking quietly while curled up on the couch together, as a movie played on, unwatched.

Unbuckling then unzipping his pants, he kicked them aside, with a bit more enthusiasm than necessary as he yanked a fresh shirt and jeans from the closet. Crossing the room, he sat down on the bed and leaned forward, resting his chin against a hand propped by elbow to knee.

 _Married?_ The thought still left him utterly gobsmacked. He'd given her his word that day the marriage would be in no way legal. Had taken painful steps to honor that promise. Yet he'd embraced the idea of being her husband, had taken immense pleasure in referring to her as "Mrs. Steele" and "my wife." Certainly, he'd adjusted to their new 'status' far easier than she, but even then, she'd started using the term 'my husband' more often, with greater ease.

The idea that they were legally wed... tickled his fancy. After all, he'd pondered lengthily the idea of joining himself to her in the bonds of matrimony more and more often over the course of their last year, had dreamt of it, had even found the bollocks to hint at it once... had even taken the steps of preparing for it in the eventuality he found the spine to force those three coveted words past his lips. No, he wasn't too keen, at all, on signing away his newfound status on those bills of divorcement she had quite literally slapped him with. Which begged the question:

Had Laura really come thirty-five-hundred miles merely to obtain the signature required to rid herself of him, once and for all?

Or was it just possible that she, like himself, had been besieged by memories of them these last days? That she'd missed him as much as he'd missed her, and that was what had propelled her to come?

If that were the case, his petulant act with Jasmine was foolish by half. _Bloody hell, old sport, own it: you were a buggering egit_ , he admonished himself, as he stepped into his jeans then stood to pull them on. If she'd come to extend an olive branch, to see if they could find way past all that had been said... and done... He let out a long, slow breath. _Then my priggish behavior, may have chased her off for good_ , he admitted to himself.

Snatching up the receiver to the phone he dialed the front desk.

"Yes, I need the number of Laura Holt's room... eight-sixteen. Thank you."

Hanging up the phone, he slipped his bare feet into a pair of docksiders, then, grabbing the room key and shoving it into his pocket, he left the room, buttoning his shirt as he walked towards the lift. A short elevator ride down four floors, then a walk down two long hallways and he stood in front of Laura's door. With a slight shake of his head, he stepped away and leaned against the wall, taking long, deep breaths, swiping at his face while he tried to calm his anything but steel-like nerves while his heart pounded in his chest. Finally, with a hard puff of air, he turned and knocked. Then knocked again. And again, quietly calling her name.

Nothing beyond the door so much as stirred. Shoving his hands in his pockets he rocked back on his heels. Laura, no matter how angry she might be, was as incapable of answering a knock on the door as she was the ringing of a phone. He was quickly running short of ideas.

Double-tracking back to his room, he picked up the phone and dialed the office, only to reach the answering service. Vexed, he hung up and dialed Mildred's home phone number. On the fifth ring, just as he was giving up hope of this route, her voice came across the line.

"Krebs. Make it fast," she clipped into the phone.

"Hello, darling," he greeted.

"Boss! I wasn't expecting to hear from you until this weekend and if I don't get moving, I'll be late for the tournament," she greeted in return, forcing an upbeat note into her voice even as she frowned where she stood in her kitchen.

"Have you heard from her, Mildred?" he asked, voice strained, cutting straight to the point.

"From who?" she asked, thinking to make him stew for a minute or so.

"Mildred..." he drawled out her name. "The woman doesn't go anywhere without letting you know. Have you heard from her?" he repeated.

"All I know is she's booked a return flight for seven tomorrow morning. She didn't tell me what happened, but it wasn't hard figuring out whatever it was, wasn't good." Her tone held an admonishment that he took as such. He rubbed a hand across his face. At least she was still here, and if all else failed and he didn't find her this evening, he could catch her at the airport in the morning. "Boss?"

"Yes, Mildred?"

"Do you remember what I said to you when we broke into that Cranston's place?" she asked.

* * *

" _ **I've seen the kind of trouble you've put Miss Holt through and I have watched her defend you when ninety-nine out of a hundred women wouldn't, and, well... I just hope you're worth it.**_ "

* * *

"Words I'm not likely to forget," he confirmed.

"The way I see it: Miss Holt's come after your twice now when you've taken off," she lectured. "Don't blow this chance she's given you. You won't get another."

"I know, Mildred, I know," he agreed, pulling a hand through his hair. "But first I have to find her..."

Fifteen minutes later, he stood one hand in pocket, the other rubbing the back of his neck, his eyes on Laura where she sat in the sand with legs drawn up to her body and chin resting on her knees. It was more than a bit terrifying, he acknowledged, to know the next few minutes would decide where his future lay. _Well, old sport, once more unto the breach_. Shoving his other hand in his pocket he strolled slowly towards her, pausing three strides away before finally taking those final steps and sitting down upon the sand next to her. She didn't acknowledge his arrival with so much as a twitch, just continued to look out to sea. Pursing his lips, he drew up a leg and rested an arm against bended knee, staring at the water much like her. The tick of his watch was almost deafening in the silence which stretched long.

"Laura," he finally spoke, desperate to hear anything but the tick which he'd begun equating with the sound of a bomb clicking off the moments before his life fully imploded, "I think we should talk, don't you?" She let out a long, hard sigh, averting her face enough that he was left looking at the back of her head.

"I think we've both said all there is to say," she answered, dully. A hand streaked through his hair. She sounded... defeated, a state he never imagined he'd attribute to her. Laura Holt never gave up or gave in, and knowing he was responsible for her current state of mind made him feel quite the heel.

"I don't believe that," he countered quietly. "Perhaps I could start with a question?" She lifted both hands to press fingertips to forehead, wishing vehemently to be any place but here right now. In the end, she flicked a hand in his general direction.

"Do what you want, you normally do anyway," she responded wearily. Not the response he was hoping for at all, but he'd take it.

"Why are you here? Did you really come more than three-thousand miles to ask me for a signature, obtainable through your counsel?" The question earned another sigh, and she turned her head to rest cheek on knee, refusing him so much as a glance, let alone a word. He rubbed a hand over his mouth anxiously. "I only ask as I had to wonder, after the initial shock of your appearance _and_ announcement wore off," he added it last in an undertone, "If you might..." he held up a single finger "... _just might_... be here because of the import today's date holds for you and I." That, at least, earned a reaction, a flinch followed by a hand lifting to knead her brow. "Lau-ra," he implored, drawing her name out.

"Does it really even matter any longer?" she finally answered, rising to her feet.

"Laura, don't walk away," he beseeched, taking to his own feet.

"You taught me how," she retorted. The answer smacked of a bit of the old Laura, and even said as resignedly as it was, it gave him a bit of hope. His hand grabbed hers before she could move a step away. "I'm tired," she complained, trying to take her hand back.

"As am I," he responded. "Bloody well-exhausted, as a matter of fact." His fingers stroked her palm. "I-" His words came to a stop as sensitive fingertips identified something out of place on the palm beneath them. He turned her hand over and saw the healing lacerations. His thumb traced the numerous cuts, as he looked at her. "What happened?" She pulled her hand away and tucked it behind her back.

"It's nothing," she dismissed. With a shake of her head, she wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed at her arms. "I have an early flight in the morning, I need—" He took a quick step towards her, in case she thought to flee again.

"Damn it, Laura, we need to talk!" he insisted.

"Why?!" she asked, drawing out the word in frustration. "Does it even matter?" she asked again. "Will it change _anything_?"

"It might," he answered, the calm to her growing storm. "Why are you in Aruba?" he pursued the earlier question. She deflated visibly before his eyes. Closing her eyes, she turned away from him, hands rubbing at her arms as she shook her head vigorously.

"I needed to know..." She'd spoken so softly, he'd barely heard her over the waves lapping at the shore.

"Needed to know _what?_ " he asked, pouncing on the admission. Unseen by him, her face contorted with distress. Drawing her lower lip into her mouth, she worried it with her teeth, while shaking her head absently and sitting back down on the sand. Her ankle throbbed from too much time on it and her head was beginning to pound in sync. She remained irritatingly, in his opinion, closed-mouth. He paced for several minutes, before sitting down next to her again, nibbling at a thumb nail. "Do you recall the Casella's case, from that first year after I took on the mantle of Remington Steele?" Resting her crossed arms on top of her knees, she turned towards him, pressing a cheek against her arms.

"Yes." He nibbled at the nail a bit, before speaking again.

"Do you recall how we nearly drove one another mad: Giovanni, Teddy, the fictitious Darlene?" She didn't answer but her eyes remained on him. "Do you recall how we finally put the matter to bed, so to speak?"

* * *

" _ **In the interest our mutual sanity, what would you say to sixty seconds of... total honesty?"**_

 _ **"A full minute? Are you sure you can handle it?"**_

 _ **"I'm desperate enough to suggest it."**_

* * *

"Yes," she answered with no little reluctance, understanding already where he was going with the question.

"I was thinking we might, uh, try it again? Sixty seconds, questions and answers, no wiggling, no deception." She turned to look out at the water again.

"Haven't we already been honest? Brutally so?" she posed. He nodded his head.

"We've certainly been that, yes. But, perhaps, not about what's most important, hmmm?" She shook her head and waved a hand.

"I don't think this is a very good idea," she contested.

"Because we have anything more to lose than we already have?" he argued. "I'd like to believe we may have everything to gain." Staring out over the water again, she pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to ease the headache. A bottle of aspirin, a warm bath and a bag of ice for her ankle, _that's_ what she wanted... And she wouldn't get any of those things, until she could free herself of the persistent man next to her.

"Fine," she heaved. He let out a long breath for a completely different reason: hope.

"Would you like to go first, or shall I?" She waved a hand at him.

"It's your idea... by all means." He gave a quiet laugh at the sarcasm, another piece of the Laura he'd left coming out.

"What did you need to know by coming here, Laura?" he asked. Her eyes flicked to him, then away.

"If you might have changed your mind," she answered with no little ease. "Where have you been?" The question surprised him, given she had carte blanche to ask anything she wished.

"The Cote d'Azure for a couple of months. Since then? I've let a small place in Portugal." Her only acknowledgement was a nod. "Because of what today is to us?"

"In part. Did you ever plan to come back, to contact me?" Her voice rose on the question. He released a long breath.

"I don't know," he admitted quietly, with a shake of his head. "I've missed my life in LA, you. But I wasn't sure if there was anything left there for me any longer. Partly my own doing, admittedly..." She slanted her eyes in his direction.

"And partly mine." The admission helped give him the strength to ask the next question.

"How could you keep Daniel's secret? The truth of who he was to me?" Her back straightened at the question, wincing when her ribs sent a sharp reminder that they were still healing.

"It wasn't my story to tell," she answered quietly. "You needed to hear it from him, _not me_. If it helps at all, if I'd known he'd... be gone so soon, I would have told you so you would have had the time with him you needed and deserved." He swallowed hard and nodded his head rapidly, before wiping at his mouth with his hand, trying to find his balance. He'd been caught off guard by the sudden wave of grief that had washed over him with the question and answer. "Did you mean what you said that last night? About—" She found she couldn't complete the sentence. In all their years together, she'd hinted at it, had told him she needed to know what his feelings were for her, but she'd never blatantly asked if he loved her, and found she couldn't ask now, either. With a shake of her head, she cast her eyes out on the water again. His eyes mimicked hers, concentrating on the horizon as he fought for the right words. In his eyes, if they had any chance of fixing what they'd done their level best to destroy, the words needed to be said the right way this time.

"I do love you, Laura," he answered, gruffly, throat feeling like sandpaper in his nervousness. "You've no idea how much I do, but suffice it to say, a man doesn't wait a woman out for near on four years in the hopes of a roll in the hay. Perhaps I should have said it sooner, and if I had we might not be where we are now." She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, a smile never touching her lips, brown eyes still solemn, as she turned her head, resting her cheek on her knees and watching him.

"Then why haven't you?" He laughed quietly, dryly and shook his head, eyes still fastened ahead.

"It's not always easy to love you, in fact it's bloody hard." He paused to rub a hand to his mouth. "Never quite knowing where I stand with you." He finally turned to look at her. "There are days I question if you truly want this," he waved a hand between them, "Or if you're merely stringing me along because now that there's been a 'Remington Steele' you can't afford for him to disappear into the night." She closed her eyes for a long moment, the comment cutting deep.

"You don't actually believe that, do you?" He rubbed at his mouth again, and repeated the shake of his head.

"I don't know, I don't know," he answered quietly. "How many times across the years have you given a litany of all the reasons you should guard against me, detailed all the ways I continually let you down, don't measure up to who you need me to be? Granted, I've made mistakes," he barked a hoarse laugh, "Some _very large_ mistakes, in truth. But I think, for the most part, I've lived up to this role into which I was cast and have tried to become the man you say you need me to be. Yet, I don't know if who I am will ever be enough for you. Otherwise why is it you continue to hold me at bay, to refuse to allow us to move ahead, as we agreed we wanted?" He finally turned to look at her. "I like the man I am now, Laura, though I still fail, even myself, at times. I couldn't have always said that about myself..." he touched his fingers to his lips, then held the hand up between them, "...for a good deal of my life, actually. But if who I am now is not enough for you, then it never will be." She watched him at length, while digesting all he'd said and acknowledged unless she was equally as honest, she'd be returning home alone the following morning, and above all, she didn't want that.

"I _do_ like the man you are, Mr. Steele, and it has nothing to do with the man I created out of whole cloth." She let out a short breath of air, and turned to rest her chin against her knees again. "In fact, I don't know you _changed_ , so much as you..." she paused, pursing her lips, trying to find the right words "...became the man you always were, but had hidden beneath Daniel's lessons, all those... roles you used to play." She lifted her hand and dropped it. "It's what I saw underneath that made me realize, almost from the start, that I could quickly find myself in way too deep." Her face pinched in distress, and she lifted her fingers to brow to worry it.

"Do you..." he stumbled around the sheer terror suddenly constricting his throat. Clearing it, he forced the question past his lips. "Do you love me, Laura?" She tilted her head back, looking up at the darkened night sky, blinking rapidly.

"I think I started falling in love with you that night in the morgue when you gave that crass attendant a piece of your mind after he referred to Wallace as just another junkie." She smiled wanly at the memory, returning her chin to knees, before suddenly sucking in a harsh breath. "I love you so much that it scares the living hell out of me, because I don't know if I'll ever be enough for you. I wasn't for my father, for Wilson." The confession drew stunned eyes to her, but he held his silence. "How can I be for you? You've spent half your life traveling around the world, have _done_ things, have _seen_ things that I never have, probably never will." She lowered her voice, let out a shuddering breath. "You can be anyone you want. You _can_ have any woman you want."

"But there's only one woman I want and only one person I wish to make a life with: _you_ ," he softly interjected. She blinked her eyes several times, before letting her eyes focus once more on the water. He reached for her hand, and weaved their fingers together. "Laura, do you _want_ me? Do you want to _have a life_ with me?" She nodded her head, and turned to look at him, finding hope in the earnest blue eyes that met hers.

"I do," she answered quietly. "But those last weeks, these last months. Your history, my history... our history." She let out a half-growl, half-sigh of frustration. "How do we get to there from here?" Releasing her hand, he shifted to sit next to her, their hips touching, and wrapped an arm around her. Guilt gave him a swift, hard, kick in the gut when he felt her protruding ribs underneath his fingers. He'd never, for even the slightest of increments, thought of Laura Holt as fragile, yet it was the first word that came to him has his sensitive hands realized just how much a toll the last months had taken on her. He allowed himself a long moment of self-loathing for having been the cause, before he spoke.

"It would seem to me, that admitting how we feel for one another, that we wish to make a life together, has always been the biggest hurdle for us to overcome. Now that we have, isn't all the rest just details to be worked through?" Solemn brown eyes met earnest blue ones.

"They're _very large_ details." Her brows furrowed and she blinked her eyes furiously trying to ward off the tingle behind them. "You broke my heart then left me," she whispered. He pressed the side of his head against hers, while nodding slowly.

"I did. And you broke mine then sent me on my way," he told her gruffly. She nodded her head slowly.

"I did." Another long sigh followed. His hand skimmed down her back then patted her on her hip. She accepted the hint for what it was, adjusting her position so she could lay her head against his shoulder For the first time in a hundred and thirty-five days, she was surrounded by his scent, embraced in his warmth. "So how to do we move forward?"

"We take the time to heal, as we should have done after all the insanity began." He bussed her on the top of the head. "Come to Portugal with me." She tilted her head back to look at him.

"Alright," she agreed, in hopes that today, on the fourth anniversary of the day he'd first plowed his way into her life, they'd find a new beginning.

(TBC)


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Remington and Laura had arrived in Portugal three days ago and had barely made it through the front door of his charming rental before they'd had their first argument... and they'd had too many to count since, some positively blistering while others had been minor disagreements, by their standards. Necessary, to clear the air around them, but often painful, none the less. It had taken great will power, on both their parts, on more than one occasion, not to walk away and see it through.

That first fight had centered on the injuries Laura was attempting to conceal, and their origin. Remington had watched on the first leg of their flight to Portugal as Laura had fidgeted, shifting this way and that, trying to get comfortable and stay that way. As they wended their way through Heathrow for their connecting flight, he'd felt the slight hitch in her step, the stiffness with which she held herself, beneath his hand where it lay at the small of her back. While she'd slept during the second leg of their flight, he'd examined the red-rimmed lacerations on both of her palms, the healing blisters on the fingers of her left hand. But it was the bruise on her cheekbone which became clearly visible as her makeup wore off during the twelve-hour journey that had him seeing red.

He'd shown her to her room, separate but equal once again reigning the day, and they'd retreated to unpack alone. She took a moment to examine the ceiling. She hadn't missed his eyes lingering on her cheek, and a quick examination in the mirror when she'd entered the room confirmed the contusion was easily seen. She let out a long, slow breath. He'd ask about the injuries, the extent of them, how they'd come to be. Answering honestly meant inviting the reopening of an age-old point of contention between them: her directive he never go into a situation alone, while she would often violate that same rule. A lie, however, would run contrary to what they were doing here, striking deep at fabric of their trust issues and impeding them from trying to move forward.

"It was a case," she told him, as she accepted the glass of wine from him when she joined him in the kitchen. Taking a sip of his own wine, he leaned his backside against the counter, lifting his brows and waiting for her to continue. "I'd been preoccupied for days, had missed clues I should have picked up on right away. I realized the quickest way to resolve the case would be a little B&E of the suspect's office. I found what I was looking for, but not before someone who had a beef of their own with the suspect found me." She let out a long puff of air, and took a sip of her wine. "They'd decided to make an example of me, assuming I was the suspect's secretary. They knocked me out then set the office on fire. When I came to, I found I'd been locked in. The only choice available was to jump out of a window. I landed badly, sprained my ankle, cracked a couple of ribs, took a pretty good blow to my cheek," she held out her right palm and shrugged, "Lacerated my hands, knees. But I'm fine, no lasting harm done."

"I see." He took another sip of wine, considering her at length. "And the fact that you might have been killed is just... incidental... then?"

"Of course not," she answered, her eyes holding his.

"Forgive me if I'm mistaken," he began, pausing for another sip of wine, then setting his glass on the counter, as he paced away from her, "But haven't I been the recipient of numerous..." he flipped a hand at the air, "... lectures, we'll say, on how we don't go into potentially dangerous situations alone?"

"Exigent circumstances," she protested. "Need I remind you I didn't have a partner to accompany me?" He hadn't been able to stop the wince at her words, that accompanied the now familiar and persistent guilt over how his leaving had impacted her life. This, just another example, but one he couldn't let slide.

"Then you _don't go_ , Lau-ra," he argued, drawing out her name. "There's not a single case worth risking your life for—"

"Oh, ho," she broke in, "As though you're one to talk. How many times have you taken off on your own, only to find yourself unconscious in some ditch, or..."

And so the argument had waged on, until they'd finally reached an iron-clad agreement that _neither_ of them would risk life or limb without the other there to back them up. It was the first time he'd seen the sparkle in her eyes since before he'd walked out that night at Ashford, and a smile spread wide across his face at the sight.

Three evenings later, they'd positioned themselves at opposite ends of the couch, enjoying a low burning fire and glass of wine as he massaged her feet and ankle, trying to provide a modicum of relief. She'd filled him in on cases she'd been working in his absence while he'd shared with her a bit of his time on the Cote d'Azur, leaving out... pertinent... details that might cause the light in her eyes to dim.

"Should I ask, Mr.—"

"Laura, may I ask you something?" She tilted her head to the side and gave him a puzzled look.

"Of course." He swallowed nervously and licked his suddenly dry lips.

"Do you think there will ever come a day when you see me as Remington Steele, instead of the man with no name, simply playing the role?" Her eyes roamed his suddenly strained face.

"You're referring to what I said in Mexico, aren't you?"

"It may have crossed my mind," he admitted. She drew her foot out of his hand at the response and moved over to sit next to him. Taking one of his hands in both of hers, she looked him full in the face, so he had no reason to doubt her next words.

"When I said what I did, I was hurt and angry, and frankly more than a little embarrassed that I'd slipped with Tony and referred to you as 'Mr. Steele.' It's not a proud moment, for me, to know that I could take your biggest regret, and use it to lash out at you. In fact, it goes against everything I believe myself to be." She paused, and lifted a hand to brush back that stubborn lock of hair which would insistently fall across his forehead. "The truth is, when I hear the name 'Remington Steele', I don't think of the mythical man I created from whole cloth all those years ago. I think of you, and only you." Swallowing hard, he nodded slowly.

"Do you think, then, you might start calling me 'Remington', at least when we're alone?" The light in her eyes he'd vowed not to dim did exactly that and he felt her fingers twitch as she looked down at their still joined hands.

"I seem to recall when I attempted to do just that, you were less than pleased," she reminded him. He pursed his lips and nodded his head slowly.

"True, true." Using a pair of fingers beneath her chin, he lifted her head until she looked at him. "But I think if you should choose to try again, my reaction will be very different." He gave her hand a tug. "Come. Have a seat. Let's see what I can do for your head and back, hmmm?"

Frowning, Laura moved to sit between Remington's legs, leaning forward and wrapping her arms around her legs as his sensitive fingers began probing for knotted muscles. The more she thought about it, the less sense it made. He'd searched for years for his name, and now was willing to so easily dismiss it? _Is he doing this for me? Does he think..._ He sighed heavily behind her, before she'd finished the thought.

"Alright, let's have it," he announced, his hands stilling.

"Have what?" she dodged. The answer was met with another frustrated puff of air.

"Lau-ra," he drawled out her name. She moved away from his hands and spun around where she was sitting to face him.

"Daniel always called you Harry," she lifted a hand. "You've been searching for your name _for years_ , so I have to wonder if you're doing this for yourself... or me."

"Harry Dawes. _The Barefoot Contessa_ , Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, United Artists, 1954. Two men reminisce over time spent with the Contessa at her funeral." He shrugged. "Harry is but one of the many names I used when Daniel first found me on the streets. I doubt it is any more my own name than Michael O'Leary, Richard Blaine, Johnny Todd, Alec Walker, or any number of names I've used over the years."

"You didn't find anything in Daniel's things? A birth certificate? A letter? Nothing at all?"

"Neither in his flat nor his villa outside of Cannes," he hedged. She searched his face, then raised her hands.

"What aren't you telling me?" she pressed. He leaned back and rubbed his face.

"I haven't finalized Daniel's estate as yet, so I've no idea what his solicitor may or may not have." She gave him an incredulous look.

"It's been four and a half months, Mr. Steele. Why not?" She demanded to know. He yanked a hand through his hair and looked away, and in that one gesture she knew the answer: It had been too much for him to face on his own. "Alright, then we'll do it together," she told him. "And if the solicitor does have something revealing the name you were given when you were born?" A hand streaked through his hair again. Should he really have to explain this to her? He glanced at her, then looked away. Apparently he did, he resignedly acknowledged.

"Would I like to know the name I had at birth? Yes, I would." He rubbed at his face. "But whatever that name might be, it's not who I think of myself as, it's not the name I've worked bloody hard to earn the right to. I've spent an entire lifetime not knowing who I am, and now that I do..." She leaned forward and lay her hand against his cheek, her thumb stroking it.

"I understand," she informed him with quiet sincerity.

"Do you?" he demanded to know, although he couldn't help the lean of his head into her palm, the slight nuzzle against it, his heart soaking in the offered bit of comfort even as his mind babbled on. "Because I'm still often under the impression you believe the life I have in LA is so easily dismissed. As soon as I find something more enticing I'll be off into the wind." He gesticulated as though shooing him along himself along the way. Her brows knitted together, and her arms automatically crossed protectively over her body, her hands rubbing her arms as she offered herself comfort now.

"There's empirical evidence which supports that belief," she reminded, averting her eyes.

"I didn't leave for something more enticing, Laura, but because I didn't believe there was anything left," he defended wearily. Her head snapped around and her eyes were lit with anger.

"You had a job, a home... a name and identity you say is who you are!" she snapped.

"And the whole of it wrapped around _you_!" he protested, taking to his feet and rubbing both hands against his face. "There's very little I wouldn't do for you or for the life I've made for myself in LA, but I don't have it in me to watch you go home each night with another man! How can you not understand that?" She stood to face him, planting her hands on her hips.

"I was _never_ going to go _anywhere_ with Tony, let alone home!" she corrected.

"And as you said, there's empirical evidence which contradicts that statement," he argued. She pressed her fingertips to forehead, fighting her riotous emotions, determined not to escalate this into events similar at Ashford.

"Yes, I used Tony to hurt you. Yes..." she shook her head, "To some degree I _enjoyed_ giving you a _small_ dose of what you'd done to me." She sucked in a harsh breath, and closing her eyes, dropped her hands. "You have no idea how sorry I am for that, or how hard it's been for me to accept I am _capable_ of doing that to someone I love." Her eyes opened, and she locked them with his. "I will not, however, apologize for something I never _considered_ doing, let alone did. I did _not_ have any plans for the future with Tony Roselli, other than to say goodbye, again, if he continued his pursuit." Despite her best intentions, her voice began to rise. "I _never_ considered going to bed with the man and I sure as hell never even _conceived_ what you accused me of! No matter how angry I was, how _hurt_ I was, the only man I was planning a future with, _despite what he'd done_ , was the man I had shared a room with throughout our time in London and Ireland!" She threw up her hands in frustration, then focused on breathing, calming again before asking, thoroughly down trodden, "Do you honestly believe I'm capable of what you accused me of? Do you honestly believe I'm the type of person that was either screwing the man or planning to, all the while planning _a honeymoon_ with _you_?" He flinched at the crass words from her mouth. "Because if you do, I don't know what it is we're trying to do here." She sat back down on the couch heavily, watching as he paced and rubbed at his neck.

"No, I don't," he finally answered. He let out a long, frustrated puff of air, as he joined her on the couch. "Those last days, I felt like I no longer knew who you were. It was as though my own personalized rendition of _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ (Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, Allied Artists, 1956) was playing out before my eyes. Angry Laura, disappointed Laura, hesitant Laura, frightened Laura, distant Laura, demanding Laura, soft Laura... I'd foolishly believed I knew all the variations of you, knew how to handle each of those parts of you with care. Roselli, keeping what Daniel was to me from me, your odd alliance with Shannon, the way you were never to be found... I've never felt you so... distant... so furious yet dispassionate at once." He dropped his face into hand supported by elbow to knee and rubbed at it.

"I understand. I feel like I was stuck in my own version of _The Twilight Zone_ (Rod Stirling, Columbia Broadcasting Systems, 1959-1964)," she shared. "The Remington Steele I've known for years, suddenly seemed to morph back into the man I knew the first couple weeks of our association. Running cons, hiding things from me, playing spy games with the man who was actively pursuing me, making—"

"I was playing 'spy games', as you put it. I'd brokered an agreement which would guarantee the sodding bastard would piss off," he interrupted. Her head snapped around to look at him.

"What?!" Her voice rose an octave on a single word. He leaned the side of his head in his hand to look at her.

"Delivery of those papers to Paddington in exchange for ending his pursuit of our marriage," he raised a brow at her, "and, most especially, _you._ " She felt sick to her stomach at what he'd shared.

"He blackmailed you, damn well knowing he might be sending you to your death," she concluded. Remington's only response was to lift his hands then drop them. She shot to her feet. "I'll kill him!" His hand grabbed hers and pulled her back down.

"Is the man out of your life, Laura?" Laura stared at him for a long moment.

"What is you said to me about Shannon? I never want to see him again." He lifted her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles.

"Then let's leave sleeping dogs lie, eh?" he suggested. "I only made mention of it to clarify that I wasn't palling around with the man as you believed, but was left with little choice if I wished he and the INS out of our lives."

"When I think about how much of what happened, how much of what we did to one another could have been avoided if we'd just _talked,_ " she grumbled, then growled with frustration.

"It seems we lost track of the two most important elements of who we are together, amongst all the other chaos going on," he mused with regret, as he leaned back against the couch, keeping her hand in his.

"We've always been partners and friends, no matter the status of our personal relationship," she finished the thought for him, leaning back next to him.

"I never thought I'd look back on anything about Norman Keyes fondly, Laura," he commented, turning his head to look at her, "But the last time I can remember us truly working together as partners was when we were in pursuit of him in Mexico. I was more than a bit lost, in truth, without it... without you." Her brown eyes met his earnest blue ones, and she nodded slowly before resting her head on his shoulder.

"Me too," she agreed, simply.

For that night, at least, the arguments had come to an end.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

The argument on Laura and Remington's third night in Estoril brought with it an unexpected consequence: The friendship and partnership that had served well as foundation of their connection with one another resurged and replaced the uncertainty that had still lingered between them. On more solid footing, they relaxed, knowing there was a good deal more that needed to be sorted out, many wounds still to heal, but with the threads that bound them strengthening, it no longer felt like certain disaster was waiting around the corner.

That relaxation gave flight to Remington's natural protectiveness where Laura was concerned, revealing itself through the need to restore her weight and health to what it was before this nightmare had begun. She'd awaken in the morning to crepes, waffles and tarts laden in fruit and topped with rich whipped cream and accompanied by eggs and sausage, or bacon... or ham; lunch was not an optional meal, but guaranteed to present itself no matter what they were doing on the day; and dinners featured multiple courses. When she'd protest her stomach could not possibly hold so much as a another bite, out would come the mousses, cheesecakes and truffles, all laden in the chocolate he knew she couldn't resist. To combat the heaviness which accompanied being so well fed, Laura began to run morning and evening, pacing herself on the ankle which continued to heel, feeling with each passing day more like her old self again.

It wasn't until their fourth night in Estoril that they'd shared their first kiss since that last, fated kiss at Ashford Castle. They'd been dancing on the terrace after dinner, and it had seemed simply... natural... after years of doing the same, when their eyes caught and held, for her to press up on her toes as his head descended. His sensitive fingers felt the shiver that raced through her body at their lips first contact, and his own body shuddered in answer. If he hadn't known in those weeks he'd indiscriminately taken any woman into his bed, he knew absolutely now that there was simply no kiss quite as intoxicating as Laura's for no one tasted like her, smelled like her, no one's hand caressed his arm, shoulder, the back of his neck as hers did, and no one's lips caressed his quite like hers. Instinctively, he pressed one hand to the small of her back and burrowed the other in her hair, seeking to deepen the kiss.

She stepped closer, intuitively, a hand clutching his shoulder as her other hand did some burrowing of its own, shivering again when he drew her lower lip into his mouth and traced it with the tip of his tongue, then released it before his lips settled over hers. Her fingertips toyed with his scalp and hair as his lips caressed, tip of his tongue teased and every now and then his teeth tantalized with a small nip. His tongue stroked a lip demandingly, and she willingly opened to him. Her only thought when his tongue probed her mouth, danced with hers, was _It feels like coming home._ The truth of the matter was, no other man's kisses had ever done to her what his did, warming her all over, making her toes curl, sending sparks across her skin, and leaving her heart melting. His rich, spicy taste seared her senses, his earthy scent stirred the ardor for him that was always present, no matter how well hidden. He ended the kiss with several, brief brushes of his lips to hers, then tucked her back into arms and resumed their dance.

By day, they took advantage of what Estoril offered: Walks along the Tamariz Beach, which could run towards the nippy side in October, but all the better to keep close with the ready excuse of warmth in the waiting; a couple of rounds at Golfe do Estoril, where their competitive natures led to much mocking and teasing; or, simply touring the street market in town. On one mild day, Remington suggested a drive in to Lisbon, a scant twenty-minute trip away, where he played guide as they toured Casa Dos Bicos, Mosteiro Dos Jeronimos, and Arco Da Rua Augusta. During these days, Laura found those unconscious touches Remington was prone to became more frequent, but even more so there were those made with absolute intent – his hand reaching for hers and holding it as they strolled. If that contact was lost, he found a reason to draw her into a quick kiss, and when they continued along their way, his hand would now rest upon her waist instead. It wasn't long before she was freely reaching for his hand of her own accord, each instance rewarded with a wide smile and twinkling blue eyes bestowed upon her.

But, if Laura thought those slight gestures of claiming Remington caught him by the heart, she soon found it was nothing compared to when she called him by 'Remington'. The first time she'd done so was on day seven while they played through a round of golf. She'd been up by two strokes, and had sent him a smug smile. The hole was a par four and as long as she put the ball close to the green, only a mere sixty-five yards or so away, she'd walk away the victor. Lining up her driver, she waited for the slight breeze to die then pulled back...

And promptly shanked the ball a meager forty yards. She watched with dismay as the ball landed deep in a sand trap.

The reason? The man currently standing behind her, grinning at his bit of mischief, having pressed his lips against the back of her neck a split second before club came in contact with ball.

"Remington, I'll have you know I'm redoing that shot," she chastised. She'd barely gotten the words out of her mouth when she found herself swept up in his arms and her lips being devoured by his. He kissed her senseless, and when he ended it he took a couple of long seconds to appreciate it as she blinked dazed eyes, before setting her back down on her feet.

"Sorry, love, there are no do-overs in golf," he dissented, reaching out to trace the back of two fingers down her cheek then neck, as he leveled white hot eyes upon her. "But in other matters, I'd be more than willing to do it over and over..." he raised a brow at her, "...and over again to your heart's content." Heat suffused her skin at what he was implying and desire coursed through her, before her brain latched onto the endearment he'd used. Lifting a brow in return to him, she looked him square in the eyes as she dragged a splayed hand down his front from neck to belt, smiling wide when his body twitched... hard.

"I'll hold you to that," she vowed, then sashayed away towards the sand trap, leaving a stunned Remington staring after her.

The day prior to their departure for London where they were to meet with Daniel's solicitor, they'd made plans to gamble the evening away at Estoril Casino. When Laura emerged from her room securing an earring in her lobe, Remington swore his heart skipped a beat, or two... or ten. She wore a navy, long sleeved, silk dress, with a scoop neck which clung in all the right places yet was still, much like Laura, elegant and demure. The skirt cut off mid-thigh showing legs for days, the view only enhanced by the matching pair of stilettos on her feet, and when she turned around, he found her back completely bare from shoulder to just above where her delightful bum began to curve. Her hair was clipped to one side, but otherwise hung in waves over her right shoulder, with a pair of silver and blue earrings, matching bracelet and necklace rounding the whole look out. _She's positively a vision and doesn't even know it_ , he mulled to himself.

After assisting her on with a coat, he landed a soft kiss against the side of her neck, then guided her out of his house to the waiting car. On the short drive through the hills to the sea-level Casino Estoril, he held a narrative about the casino, waxing poetic about how it was both the inspiration for Ian's Fleming's _Casino Royale_ , and later a screenplay starring David Niven, Peter Sellers and Ursula Andrews (MGM, 1967).

They spent the evening making the rounds: Roulette, followed by a bit of black jack, then wrapping up the evening playing chemim de fer, at which Remington discovered Laura played a better than fair hand. As they'd wended their way through the casino, he'd held his hand lightly at her lower back, laying quiet claim to her as he'd done for years. And, as had become increasingly more common the past week, as they'd played he frequently reached for her hand, bent over to speak softly into her ear or to tuck a stray hair back... yet more overt signs she was spoken for. But what had caught her attention most was the way he exuded pride that it was he who was escorting her, a look she'd seen often over the year prior. The evening had been perfect and they'd departed the casino far more flush than when they'd arrived.

Yet, by the time they'd arrived back at the house, Laura had grown solemn, distracted, enough so that Remington raised a single brow at her back as he followed her through the front door. An offer of an evening brandy was accepted, and while he went off to the kitchen to make them each one, she retired to the terrace. When he joined her, he found her leaning against the railing and staring at the twinkling lights of the town below.

"Why didn't you come to me?" she asked, without ever turning around. He came to a halt, regarded the glasses of sherry in his hands, then backtracking a couple steps, set them on the table before striking the same pose at the railing next to her. He couldn't say he hadn't been expecting it. It was the topic the they'd come near to, while hammering out other matters, but here it was now: ground zero, the place from which all the rest had come after.

"I can't tell you how many times these last months I've asked myself that same question," he began, pausing to rub his hand across his face. "We'd been doing so well, you and I. We were so close to having all I'd dreamt of for a long time..." he glanced over at her, "... had hoped you'd dreamt of too. Then Elaine Becker appeared in my office and..." he paused and swallowed hard "...I knew I couldn't come to you, not with this." She whirled to face him.

"Why not?!" she demanded to know, anguish threading through her voice, painted on her face. "When have I _ever_ not come through for you? When have I _ever_ not kept you safe from harm?" He walked away from the railing, dragging a hand hard through his hair.

"When have you ever not doubted me first before finally believing in me? When have you not frozen me out when I've done something or something's cropped up from my past which might threaten the Agency?" His own voice began to rise. " _When_ have you not ended us when you believed I'd placed the Agency at risk?!" He lifted his face towards the sky, and rubbed at it with both hands. "We were _so close_ , Laura," he quieted. "The idea of seeing those same old doubts in your eyes, of seeing _that_ look which is always there right before you take me to my knees, end us. I couldn't... chance... _seeing_ it again." She laughed silently, sadly.

"So you turned to the hooker..." she choked out, turning her back to him and shaking her head, "...trusted her more than you did me." He crossed the space between them in four rapid strides, clasping her shoulders in his hand and turning her to face him.

"Laura, you know that's-"

"Were you seeing her? Having sex with her?" she rasped, interrupting.

"No!" he refuted loudly, then with concerted effort, lowered his voice, "It was merely a professional arrangement." She yanked her arms free from him, and backed away.

"Last time I checked, sex with a hooker is the very definition of a ' _professional relationship,'_ " she scoffed.

"She's known since the day we were helping she and Bernard my sites were set _wholly_ on you, that you were who and what I wanted and I would not stray," he elaborated, closing in on her again to cup her face in his hands, then waited for her eyes to meet his. "I wouldn't do that to you." Her eyes flicked back and forth across his face, searching.

"I believe you," she finally answered, then surprised him by pulling away and putting distance between them again. "Then why? Why did you trust her more than me?" Back to the railing, she gripped it so tightly, he could see the whitening of her knuckles even in this dim light. "Why were you so willing to _rip my heart out_ and throw everything _you say you wanted_ away?" Face pinched with distress, he shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, averting his eyes.

"I was bloody well scared. Is that what you want to hear?" he asked tiredly. "There was every chance you wouldn't have me," he sighed heavily. "Or if you _had_ agreed, because of how it'd come about, you'd decree our relationship business only from there forward. I couldn't live with either choice, as both meant losing you." With a disbelieving laugh, she pressed her fingertips to her forehead.

"And you thought a sure-fire way of _not_ losing me was by marrying another woman?" He laughed dryly at that, and removing a hand from his pocket swiped it over his face.

"Oh, I don't think either of us can ascribe 'thinking' to what I did during those days." He shook his head. "Feeling, reacting are more apt descriptions, I'd say. I can't recall a time when I've ever felt so thoroughly boxed in, not by DesCoine, not by Cranston or any number of people in my..." he licked his lips and glanced away "...inglorious past." He pressed hands to railing and leaned against his arms, staring at the water far below. "Like your promise to yourself never to find yourself in too deep again, I'd broken vows of my own..." This drew her gaze upon him. "...To never allow myself to become attached to a person or place, so that when things turned on end, as they always did, I could easily be on my way, to begin anew with no regrets. For nearly two decades, I managed to do precisely that." He turned his head to look at her. "But it all changed the day I met you." He laughed somberly and shook his head, averting it again. "A home. A profession I enjoy and take pride in." His eyes flicked towards her. "You. I might have found a way to live with the loss of the first two, but not the last." He pushed away from the railing, walking several paces away. "I was scared, Laura, and more than a bit put out with you, to be honest." The comment caught off guard, and she jerked upright, a hand flying up to lay against her chest.

"Me? What had I done?" she asked, her surprise evident in the question.

"Four years," he rubbed at his neck, and looked upward while shaking his head. "Four years of this bloody dance, and I didn't feel I could come to you free of impunity, consequence. It's why I acted like a bloody prick after you found me at the chapel." His hands returned to his pockets. "But, if I'm to be honest, I think I wanted you to find me, stop me before I made the biggest mistake of my life. Why else would I have been blathering on about blood tests, had my tux delivered to the office..." He let out another breath "... had Clarissa pick me up directly beneath the Agency windows?" He held his eyes on her until she lifted her eyes to meet his. "I never wanted to be wed to the woman, Laura, not even on paper." He lifted a hand and dropped it defeatedly. "It simply seemed all other roads led to losing you, and it was a risk I wasn't willing to take."

"Yet despite all you'd done, I married you anyway," she pointed out. "If you had come to me when the INS first announced themselves, would I have been worried, afraid of the possible ramifications? _Yes_ , I would have. But I wouldn't have been angry with _you._ You had _done anything_ wrong." She leaned her backside against the railing and rubbed at her arms, while carefully considering the rest of the charges. "If marrying you had been the only recourse left, I would have agreed. That said... You were right: I would have likely demanded a business only relationship. It's not easy for me to admit that, but there it is. It would have been yet another... con... we were pulling on those around us, now on the government. It would have only made things between us all the more... confusing." He nodded his head where he stood across the terrace.

"I _am_ sorry, Laura. If I had it to do all over a—"

"You'd do exactly the same thing, because when you feel trapped, when you're scared, you don't _think_ clearly," she interrupted, as she approached him. "I know you said you're finished changing, but if we honestly want a life together," she reached out to clutch his upper arms in her hands, "we _both_ need to change. You need to know that if you're in trouble, you can come to me and not have to worry that in doing so you'll place us at risk. I need to know when you're in trouble, you'll come to me and _trust_ that _together_ we'll find a solution." Nodding his head in agreement, he gathered her into his arms.

"I'm sorry. For not coming to you, for making you believe, even for a moment, that you could ever possibly be 'second best' to me." Her hand burrowed into his hair, pressing his head against her shoulder.

"I know you are. I'm sorry for what I did, as well." Breathing deep, he leaned back to look down at her, tucking a stray hair back behind her ear as he did.

"Laura, are we agreeing to begin a life together?" She pressed her lips to his neck, then looked up at him and smiled.

"At the very least, it's a start. But first, we need to settle your father's affairs..."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Laura and Remington arrived in London on Sunday evening. Before departing Estoril, he'd terminated his lease of the small home in the hills with the rental agency. Having let the place on a month-to-month basis, he'd provided the pre-requisite thirty-day notice and accompanying one month payment, then had packed up the little that he'd collected since he'd been gone from LA, which was not much as he was man with a lifelong habit of traveling light. He hadn't glanced back as he'd shut the front door behind he and Laura, for as pleasant as his brief stay had been, there was only one place he'd ever missed when he'd left it behind.

The hired hack delivered them directly from Heathrow to Daniel's townhouse in Abbey Gardens, located in the St. John's Woods section of London. Laura had looked out the window in surprise at the quaint grade II historical property, whose exterior featured white washed concrete block walls on the lower two levels and beige brick on the upper two. The pristine white window casings, the wrought iron railing running in front of the third floor, and the white stoop and stairs only added to the home's allure. Her eyes were still glued to the building when Remington offered her a hand out of the cab. Automatically, she retrieved her overnight bag and slung it over her shoulder, while he did the same with his and picked up a suitcase.

"I never expected Daniel..." She stopped and rethought what she was about to say. "It's lovely." He grinned down at her.

"You never expected Daniel to reside in a home such as this," he finished her initial thought, as he guided her up the stairs with a hand to the small of her back, as the hack driver followed behind with the rest of their luggage. "You're quite right. He was enigma as far as his choice in housing was concerned. St. John's Woods is an affluent enough neighborhood for him to be viewed as a well-to-do gentleman, but he was unwilling to sacrifice the feeling of home simply for show." Setting down his suitcase, he pulled his keys from a pocket. Unlocking the door, he swung it open and indicated she should precede him. Dropping her overnight bag onto the foyer floor and laying her purse on the credenza, she waited until Remington had tipped the driver and sent him on his way before speaking again.

"Has he owned the house long?" she wondered. Setting his own overnight bag on the floor next to hers, he took her hand in his and led her into the formal living room. She took in the sun-filled, airy room, with its white washed walls, and dark stained, wood floors. The furnishings were obviously expensive, yet leaned towards concern for comfort as opposed to grandeur. A massive fireplace, the same color as the floor, was the clear centerpiece of the room.

"Since well before I re-entered his life," he shrugged. Her head snapped in his direction and her eyes widened.

"Is this where you grew up?"

"Not at all. He wouldn't have risked my divulging the location of this house," he flashed her a crooked grin, "or me helping myself to its contents in those early years. I was seventeen, maybe eighteen, before I even became aware he owned a home in London." A thought brought a frown to her face.

"If Daniel's owned this house for decades, why didn't you stay here last summer instead of that pit where Mildred found your passports?"

"In case it's slipped your mind, I had the whole of Scotland Yard looking for me. This is... was Daniel's home, Laura. My leading the coppers here was never even a consideration." She lay her hand on his upper arm.

"I understand," she assured him, as they entered the dining room.

They toured dining room, kitchen and library on the main floor before he showed her the master suite on the third floor and the three bedrooms on the fourth. He gave her carte blanche as to which room she'd like to call her own while they were in residence, including the option of the master. She chose a bedroom on the third floor, with windows looking over the back garden. The final floor of the home, the lower, featured another sitting room, billiards room complete with a bar and glass roofed conservatory which looked out over the garden. She ran her fingers over the white baby grand where it stood in the conservatory.

"Did Daniel play?" Remington chuckled at the question.

"Not a single note. I once asked him about it, and he looked at me as though I'd gone quite mad." He drew himself up, imitating Daniel's impeccable posture. "'A conservatory sans piano, my boy, is just another room.'"

"Did you spend a lot of time with him here?" He drew his lips in, a flash of grief crossing his face as he looked around the room.

"Not' a'tall, a brief visit here and there," he answered. "I lit out on my own, for the most part, at nineteen, or thereabouts. Oh, we'd meet up now and again: Monte Carlo, Hong Kong, Rome, St. Moritz and the like. We made certain to always know where the other was, but rarely worked a job together, the two of us drawn towards different pursuits."

"What do you mean?"

"Daniel was drawn to the con, the sting whereas my interests ran more towards theft, or recovery, if you will," he shrugged. He cleared his throat. "Care to take a trip to the market with me? I've made us reservations at Rules for dinner this evening, but would like to stock the cupboards for the next couple of days." She nodded her head slowly as she regarded him thoughtfully.

"Alright," she agreed.

Busy. In a word that is what Laura would describe Remington. Keeping busy. Finding excuses to stay busy. A trip to the market was followed by a tour of Westminster Abbey and a stop by Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. Back to Daniel's townhouse to change, then dinner at Rules and afterwards a suggestion the drop into the movie theater to catch a viewing of _Top Gun_ , which he'd heard was all the rage back in the States. They hadn't returned to the townhouse until a little after midnight, both retiring to their respective rooms for bed.

Showered and changed, Laura paced her room for a few minutes, before climbing into bed. Rolling onto her right side, facing the outside of the bed, she tugged the covers up around herself. She tried to force sleep to come, but in the end flipped to her back and slung an arm over her eyes. Try to ignore it, set aside, all she may, she was worried about Remington. His silent admission in Estoril that he'd yet to settle Daniel's estate, the flash of grief that crossed his face in the conservatory, the need to keep busy... his long history of avoiding, even fleeing, from intensely emotional situations. All of it had her instincts screaming that when he'd left Ashford that night, he'd run from it all: Daniel's revelation, the death of his closest friend turned father... the end of their own relationship and all it entailed.

She hadn't been there for him. It was an incontrovertible fact that still made her stomach sink to her toes when she thought about it. There after Daniel had died in front of him, yes, for those few short seconds before Mickeline had arrived with the announcement of the coffins being delivered and they'd been swept back into Roselli's mess. But she hadn't been there when Daniel had finally told him the truth. Instead she'd been helping Roselli, the man who would have put Remington in the ground without a blink of an eye. Mildred had been there – thank God, for that – but it should have been her and both she and Mildred knew it, for she'd easily read the censure on the older woman's face.

Until that final night at Ashford, they'd never talked about Daniel's death, and, even then, it was only a passing glance.

* * *

" _ **Only Daniel could end up being buried as a national hero in both London and Moscow."**_

 _ **"It's the ultimate con. He deserves nothing less."**_

 _ **"You're a good son."**_

 _ **"I only wish I could have spent more time with him."**_

 _ **"On the other hand, you spent twenty years with him."**_

* * *

She blew out a long breath. No, he hadn't dealt with his grief over his loss of Daniel, hadn't dealt with how he felt about a deception which lasted two decades, just as he hadn't dealt with Daniel's estate. Looking back at it now, she'd assumed he'd come to her when he was ready to talk. She'd been operating under a false belief, one created by the year prior. He'd begun to make huge strides in confronting emotionally laden topics. He'd asked her directly, during the Cranston case, why she hadn't come to see her in jail. He'd admitted freely his fears during the Shane case. He'd approached her at the Spa when ready to talk. He'd laid into for her fame before all else attitude during the Young case. Yes, she'd believed he'd do the same when he was ready to address Daniel.

But that assumption had been based on who they'd been weeks before, not who they'd become... what they'd become since. Trust in one another, faith in one another had been shredded and scattered to the winds. No matter how much he might have wanted to come to her, he wouldn't have. In truth, the thought of doing just that probably had never occurred to him at all. There had been too much distance between them.

 _And he won't now, no matter how much he might want to_ , she thought. They'd taken long strides towards healing all the harm they'd done one another, but she knew to the bottom of her toes he'd neither come to her in need... nor reject it if she went to him.

Three minutes later she stood in Remington's doorway, watching him lay in his bed much as she'd just been doing... on his back with an arm laying over his eyes. Carefully, she perched on the side of his bed, watching as he lowered his arm and she saw the grief reflected there overshadowed by relief. Standing, she removed her robe, laying it on the end of the bed, then lifted sheets and comforter and slid into bed next to him. Grasping his hand, she rolled to her side, back facing him, bringing him with her. She waited until he silently spooned his body to hers, then brought their joined hands up to rest below her breasts.

"Laura," he rasped.

"We'll talk when you're ready," she told him quietly. "Get some sleep, Remington." She felt the nod of his head behind her, before she closed her eyes.

Remington swallowed hard against the emotions that threatened to choke him. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply of her scent and dared to meld his body more firmly to hers. She shifted slightly to rest her head against his extended arm, freeing her other hand to stroke the forearm attached to the hand she held in hers. With a long sigh, he bussed her on the top of her head and closed his eyes.

* * *

The meeting with solicitor Henry McGregor had been... anticlimactic. As Remington had explained on the drive to the attorney's office McGregor's 'specialty' was handling legal matters for those who walked on the shady side of the street. Oh, McGregor had enough 'regular' clients to keep the authorities, or anyone else, from wondering how he paid the bills, but he'd lined his pockets quite nicely over the last three decades in fees for services rendered from his confidential clientele as he developed a reputation for discretion... and not particularly caring where his client's money had come from. McGregor's office, a single shingle operation in a fairly opulent space on Bond Street in London, spoke of success, drawing in the honest client. As for the others? Meetings with those individuals were generally conducted at pubs around town or out of his home.

Since Remington Steele was an internationally well-regarded private investigator who would draw no attentions of the wrong kind to his business, their meeting was held at McGregor's office. They'd been hustled into McGregor's inner sanctum within seconds of their arrival by his dowdy, yet obviously, efficient secretary.

"Harry," McGregor greeted, taking to his feet and offering Remington a hand when the door closed behind he and Laura.

"Steele, Remington Steele, if you don't mind, Henry," he corrected while shaking the man's hand and clasping it between both of his. "The years have been kind to you."

"What's it been now? Two, three years?" McGregor inquired.

"Going on four." The younger man smiled.

"I was terribly sorry to hear of Daniel's passing. A truly good one lost, that's for certain," McGregor offered his condolences, leaving Remington clearing his throat.

"Yes, well..." He released the man's hand and held out a hand towards Laura. "My partner, Laura Holt."

"Ahhh, yes. Delighted to meet you," McGregor offered his hand, "I've heard much about you over the years from Daniel." She winced involuntarily, imagining what the man had heard, as she shook his hand. "Daniel took a great deal of comfort in knowing Harry... Remington, would have you watching out for him after he passed." _That_ left her turning her head and blinking her eyes as she released the man's hand. "Please, have a seat, this shan't take long. Daniel was quite organized in his affairs, as you are well aware."

"He was that, indeed," Remington acknowledged, then waited until Laura was seated before he took his place in the chair next to hers. Automatically, he began searching his pockets for a toothpick to gnaw at. When he didn't find one, he began to lift his hand to mouth to worry his thumb nail, only to find said hand captured in Laura's. She weaved their fingers together and gave his hand a squeeze of reassurance. Blue eyes rested on her with gratitude as McGregor retrieved a file from his drawer and set it before him, then buzzed his secretary asking her to bring him the box he'd indicated he'd need for this client.

"For the most part, Daniel left the entirety of his estate to you Har—Remington, less a few minor bequeathals to his housekeepers in London and Saint Jean-Cap-Ferrat, to tide them over until they find new employ, as well as a few... knick knacks... friends had admired across the years. All those have been sent onwards, already with the exception of two: a package of undisclosed contents for your Miss Holt, and a small Renoir for an..." He looked at the papers, and read off, "...'Abigail Holt, that she'd particularly enjoyed during her visits in Saint Jean-Cap-Ferrat.'"

Laura blanched at that and her hand twitched hard. She looked at Remington who appeared just as surprised as she.

"Elsewise, you inherit the rest. I've already taken the liberty of having the townhouse in London and villa in France retitled in your name." McGregor shoved two enveloped across the desk to Remington who picked them up and handed them to Laura. "His investments are carefully detailed within this file, and once you've signed the paperwork accepting claim of your inheritance, I'll have his bank accounts both on and off-shore transferred into your own, minus inheritance taxes and my fees, of course."

"Of course," Remington nodded numbly.

"If you'll sign here..." McGregor pointed to a place, then turned several pages once Remington had, "...Here..." another signature and turn of pages "...And here." With the final signature he set the documents aside. "Should I expect you to transfer your own interests stateside?" the solicitor inquired. Remington gave his head a little shake at the ease with which it seemed a man's entire life was settled.

"Uh, no, um, I'll be leaving them in your capable hands," he managed.

"Good enough. Two last matters then." He placed another envelope on the edge of the desk, along with a single piece of paper. "From Daniel to you, marked confidential. I've no idea what's contained within. And," McGregor looked up at Remington, "the location where Daniel was buried outside of Moscow should you ever find occasion to visit." The younger man was held speechless. With a squeeze of his hand, Laura stepped in.

"How did you get that?" she inquired.

"I called in a few favors owed," McGregor provided, elaborating no further.

Remington took the envelope and paper and handed them off to Laura as well, then stood to shake the man's hand again. They departed the office with the stack of papers secured in Laura's purse and the box held under Remington's free arm. The entire meeting had spanned a tenth of the time it had taken for them to travel to McGregor's office.

"Were Daniel and my mother involved?" she finally blurted out ten minutes into the cab ride back to St. John's. Remington turn and cast amused eyes on her.

"I wasn't aware, if that's what you're asking. I knew he enjoyed her company when they spent time together in LA, obviously," he pondered. "But, if you're asking my opinion: Yes, the evidence would seem to support they'd had an affair of one manner or other."

"Oh, God," she bemoaned, lifting a hand and laying it at the base of her neck.

"What upsets you? Knowing your mother has sex or that she had a fling with Daniel?"

"Yes, to both," she proclaimed. "We're talking about _your_ father and _my_ mother."

"Two consenting adults who liked one another and have needs just like anyone else," he argued. She clamped both hands over her ears.

"Please," she elongated the word. "Let's not discuss my mother's _needs_." He chuckled next to her, and removing the hand closest to him from her ear, he brushed his lips against the back of her knuckles, keeping her hand in his the remainder of the ride.

Busy appeared to be the name of the game again on this day. Remington cast aside the suggestion they open the envelopes filling her purse, instead insisting on taking her on more tours across London: a visit to Big Ben, the Royal Mews, London Tower and the British Museum, fortified with a lunch of traditional fish and chips. They hadn't returned to the townhouse until six and then he immediately set about preparing their evening meal. Dinner was followed by a sweet chardonnay and several games of rather raucous billiards, which echoed their rivalry upon the golf green. He quickly discovered her mathematical mind could easily discern the perfect angle on bank shots, but in the end, his years of experience prevailed, and he'd won each of the games, though narrowly on more than one occasion. Finally, reluctantly, he'd racked their cues.

"Shall we do this then?" he asked, eyes strained, a hand rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Alright," she agreed, preceding him up the stairs to the living room where they'd set box and envelopes.

They sat together on the couch, hips touching. Leaning forward, he braced his chin in a hand supported by elbow to knees, fanning his fingers up over his mouth.

"Where do you want to begin?" Laura prodded, after her watch had ticked off a couple of minutes and he continued to sit, unmoving. Remington looked at her, then returned his gaze to the envelopes meant for him, the box meant for her. He finally moved, picking up the two envelopes holding the deed to the London and Saint Jean-Cap-Ferrat homes and setting them aside, selected the envelope containing an accounting of Daniel's investitures. Prying open the flap, he extracted roughly two dozen pages, handing half to her. She leaned back into the couch cushions resting the instep of her feet against the coffee table as she scanned the pages.

"To think I always had Daniel pegged as a spendthrift," she mulled with a shake of her head.

"Oh, he was that," he laughed aloud. "But whilst he had few rules, those he did have were cast in stone. Amongst them, squirreling away at least a quarter of the take from any job, no matter how large or small, then setting another bit aside to finance the next job, whatever that might be. Under no circumstances was the former to be touched until one decided to give up the game for good and retire."

"Some retirement," she mused. "He has multiple accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, all with... healthy... balances." She slanted her eyes in his direction. "Too bad that rule didn't rub off on you," she smirked. He raised a single brow in her direction.

"Who's to say it didn't? Hmmmm?" He left her with that morsel to ponder as he continued to look through his own papers. "He was certainly well diversified between stocks and bonds." Next to him, Laura suddenly slapped the papers in her hand into her lap and sat up straight.

"What did McGregor mean by 'your accounts' and taking 'your interests stateside?" He flicked his eyes in her direction then returned their focus to the papers in front of him while an amused smile lifted his lips.

"I'll say no more, at least for now, other than that rule did, indeed, stick. Certainly, I've left enough clues along the way for you to discover which would declare I'm not a pauper," he teased, then leaned over to touch his lips to her cheek.

Taking the papers from her lap, he combined them with his and returned them to the envelope. With great trepidation he picked up the last of the envelopes and peeled back the flap, removing the single piece of paper from inside. Skimming it, his jaw clenched before picking up the envelope and looking down inside it again for anything he might have missed. With a furious oath, he crumpled up the piece of paper, tossing it at the coffee table and took to his feet, striding across the room. Hurdling himself through the front door, he slammed it behind him.

She could only watch, stunned, as he departed.

(TBC)


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Remington had stormed from the townhouse nearly two hours before when Laura finally picked up the piece of paper he'd balled up and carefully unfolded it, then smoothed it out. She couldn't help the pang of guilt that accompanied the action, feeling she was violating his privacy in some way given he'd never offered it to her to view. But, she rationalized, if she no idea what had upset him badly enough to take to the streets on his feet, she wouldn't know how to help him when he finally returned. Her heart clenched, her pain for him significant enough to make her draw in a sharp, harsh breath.

It was the birth certificate he'd longed to possess, but it lacked what he craved most of all: the name, his name, whether or not he'd already claimed Remington Steele as his own. For a man who'd waited a lifetime for answers, the contents of the birth certificate were as brief as they were cruel. Child's name: Infant O'Connell. Date of Birth: 1952 September 6. Mother's name: Colleen O'Connell. Father's name: Bastard child. Hospital of Birth: Home. County of Birth: Tipperary. Setting the birth certificate down on the table, she leaned forward and pressed her face into her hands, rocking as she recalled what he'd said to her two years before.

* * *

" _ **Entitled to nothing, not even parents."**_

* * *

 _Or a name,_ she thought to herself now. She stood and paced, waited, then paced some more. It was nearly two in the morning by the time she accepted she was helpless to do anything until he returned home by his own volition. She knew little of London and these were his old stomping grounds. He'd come home when he was ready and not a moment before. So, in the end, she trudged up two flights of stairs, changed into a pair of pajamas, then stumbled back down a flight, settling herself in his bed. If she could do nothing else, she could be there waiting should he need her.

Which is where Remington found her when he returned at three-thirty, sober as a priest and feet aching from hours of trying to walk his troubles away. He'd stopped in the dining room on the way up to his room to fetch himself a bottle of scotch and a glass, thinking to take the edge off enough to at least sleep. He'd come to an abrupt halt when entering his room and seeing Laura fast asleep in his bed. _How many years have I dreamt of finding her exactly thus_ , he mused to himself. Approaching the bed on catlike feet, he leaned down and bussed her whisper soft atop her head, before silently crossing the room and retrieving lounge pants from his suitcase. He changed in the bathroom so as not to wake her, then pulled on his robe, before slipping out the door to sit on the balcony.

The October night was chilly, par for the course in London at this time of the year, but the scotch scorched through his blood, warming him instantly. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the woman lying inside, in his bed. One last chance to get it right, as Mildred had reminded him. _By God, I'm not going to bodge this up_ , he vowed. Laura had been the most important person his life for years, was quite simply the best thing that had ever happened to him. He wanted nothing more than to wake her, seduce her, to feel her bare skin pressed to his, to feel himself buried deep in her warmth as her hands caressed his skin. He wanted a future, a life with her. A family, a home. Draining his glass, he refilled it.

He'd wanted nothing more than to give Laura a name. Proof, he'd once told her, of her commitment to her. Yes, he'd claimed Remington Steele as his own, for it was who he saw himself as, had for years now. But his true name, the one given him at birth, it was a piece of himself he could give to her that no one else would ever have. He'd clung to a gossamer strand of hope, even after Daniel had died without revealing it, that somewhere, amongst his belongings, he'd find the proof of who he'd been. _Infant O'Connell_ , he recalled, giving a dry bark of laughter before the fury set in and he took to his feet to pace. _He knew... he knew what it meant to me,_ he silently railed, raking a hand through his hair. He lifted his glass to drink again, then sent it sailing into the wall instead.

"Damn you, Daniel," he shouted, "You knew!"

In the bedroom, the sound of shattering glass jolted Laura from her sleep. Remington's distressed voice had her springing out of bed and, snatching up her robe and shrugging it on as she crossed through the balcony door. There, she carefully wended her way around the shards of glass scattered on the ground towards where he stood at the railing, gnawing at his thumb nail. He shook his head as he saw her nearing from the corner of his eye.

"I trusted him, Laura. Next to yourself, there's no one I've ever given the whole of my trust to as I did Daniel," he said aloud, never turning to look at her. She took the final few steps to mimic his pose, leaning against the railing, looking out over the garden.

"I know," she answered quietly.

"How could he keep this from me for twenty sodding years?" he demanded to know, his anguish clear in his voice. "He _knew_ what it was like for me, no parents, no family to speak of." He rubbed a hand across his mouth. "Always wondering who I was, where I came from, why no one wanted to keep me for their own." She lay a hand on his arm.

"The night I uncovered his secret, I asked Daniel the very same question," she shared. "He was afraid you'd reject him out of hand if he revealed the truth of who he was to you." He barked a harsh laugh in answer, and pushed away to pace the distance of the balcony.

"I see. Better to allow his son to carry a lifetime of regrets than to lose favor, eh?" he posited, sarcastically. "He stood there, Laura, outside of the Earl's library, _knowing_ I was about to present myself as the man's son. What would Daniel have done if the Earl had claimed me as his?"

"I don't know," she admitted, lifting her hands and dropping them. "But given how hard he fought me for you over the years, I'd like to think he'd have stepped forward, told you the truth." He scrubbed at his face with both hands.

"I don't know, I don't know," he muttered, frustrated. "If he had revealed himself then, I'd have had nine months... _nine bloody months!..._ to find answers to my questions." He began to pace again as his agitation built. "Infant sodding O'Connell, bastard child," he spit out. "Not even born in County Kilkenny as I'd always believed." He spun to face her, pulling his hands through his hair. "Damn it, Laura, I needed a name. A name to _give you_ , to—" She quickly stepped to him and grasped his face in her hands.

"I don't _need_ a name to prove that you care, to prove your commitment," she interrupted, "You're here, we're here, planning a future together. _That's_ all I need. I wanted this for you, nothing more." He nodded his head slowly, then suddenly sucked in a harsh, pained breath as he averted his head.

"I'm so damned angry with him, that if he were here right now, I'd likely lay him flat out." He turned his head to look at her again, his face painted with anguish. "But I miss him, Laura. Which is bloody well ridiculous, I must admit, as we were hardly in one another's pockets the last fifteen years or so. Yet, we _always_ made it a point to let one another know where we were in case we ran into a spot of trouble, always made it a point to speak regularly. If I'd known he was ill..." he choked up, and sucked in a staccato breath. "He's the only person, beyond yourself, who saw something in me more than the surface, something worth keeping." His chest heaved several times, before a strangled cry was ripped from his throat, and the grief he'd suppressed since Daniel's passing flooded him.

"Come here. Come here," she urged, gathering him close and pressing his head to her shoulder as he sobbed. He wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her so tightly it made breathing a bit of a challenge. Despite the discomfort she was determined, as her hands alternately stroked his back and head, that she'd keep with him, however he needed her, until his sorrow ebbed.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

The next four days they spent continuing their sojourns throughout London. The night Remington finally allowed the grief process over Daniel's death to begin, Laura had coaxed him to bed close to dawn. There, she'd tucked herself into his side, resting her head against his chest as her fingers glided whisper soft, up and down his side until he'd finally given in to an exhausted slumber. He'd been a bit embarrassed by his emotional outburst the next morning, but soon the easy ebb-and-flow of their partnership and friendship calmed his fettered nerves.

They toured the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery; visited the London Dungeon, the Monument to the Great London Fire, the London Wall and St. Paul's Cathedral; and one cool, misty afternoon enjoyed a leisurely stroll through Victoria Gardens, which eventually chased them back to the townhouse to warm by the fire. They'd spent nearly the entirety of one day shopping some of the finest stores in all of London – Fenwick, Harrods, and Fortnum & Mason. They split up from time-to-time to explore a bit on their own – Floris, Burberry and D.R. Harris & Co. for her and Henry Poole & Co., T.M. Lewin and Garrard & Co. for him. There were many times across those days, especially early on, when he'd lapse into long periods of silence, creasing a troubled brow. Increasingly, as time marched on, when those silences ended he'd share with her some of the funnier or more poignant moments of his and Daniel's early association. He'd been surprised to find he'd not been left tongue tied, had not spoken in stilted words as he so often did when emotions were involved. Instead, he'd found sharing with her some of his life with Daniel was... cathartic.

As for Laura? He was pleased to realize there was quite an unexpected but none the less treasured side effect of his voluntary disclosures: she inevitably reached for his hand, twining their fingers together as they walked, or when they sat quietly, she'd unconsciously caress his arm while he spoke.

They both began to believe they'd somehow made it through all the harm they'd done one another, and had come out the other side all the stronger for it.

After the night he'd clung to her, as his grief over his loss of Daniel had swallowed him whole, there was another significant milestone reached: all shyness, all uncertainty about where their personal relationship stood simply... disappeared. The soft, gentle kisses they'd shared since that first kiss in Estoril, began to see a change of their own and they quickly found themselves picking up where they'd left off before the INS entered their lives. Lips blazed heated trails down the long column of a neck, teeth nibbled upon a lobe of an ear, mouths tasted the skin of a collarbone. In a dynamic change from years past, several times he'd had to still her, as she had suddenly morphed into the aggressor, while he was the one wishing to wait until the time was right.

Had Remington been asked, he'd have wagered all he owned that now, with the worst of his sorrow over Daniel spent, Laura would return to sleeping in her own bed each night. Had, indeed, such a wager been made, he'd have found himself a contented pauper, for the following night, after showering and dressing in a pair of the prim pajamas to which she was inclined, she'd walked without the slightest of hesitation into his room, laid her gown at the end of the bed, then slipped into bed, gladly snuggling into his waiting arms. After that evening, they made no pretense of where they would sleep each night, for it would simply be wherever the other one was.

On the fourth night, wine glasses in hand, they lay on the floor before a roaring fire amongst a bevy of pillows, sharing sweet kisses and conversing quietly. With a sudden sigh, Laura rolled to her back, pressing a palm to her forehead. Remington followed stretching out on his side, leaning the side of his head into a hand supported by elbow against floor.

"What's troubling you, hmmmm?" he asked, lifting her other hand and brushing his lips across the back of her fingers. Her eyes flicked to him, then away.

"I'm going to have to go home, sooner than later," she sighed. "It's been two weeks. The Agency, bills..." she allowed the thought to trail off, hoping he'd understand she'd already chosen him over the Agency by shutting it down as she had. But the simple reality was, she needed to get home, open back up the Agency and start generating some revenue. There were lease payments, utilities, credit cards... Mildred's salary that had to be paid, and that meant she had to work. He nodded his understanding, then swallowed hard and asked the question that had been much on his mind the last weeks.

"Laura, have you any idea where matters stand with the INS?" She stood abruptly. Pushing up into a sitting position his eyes followed as she retrieved her purse from the credenza in the foyer, then returned to seat herself next to him.

"As far as the INS is concerned, you've been overseas conducting Agency business." She handed him a paper. "My attorney has obtained a visa for you based solely on the merits of your contributions to Los Angeles through your business endeavors. Our marriage, of course, stands as valid. The INS is no longer an issue." He stared at the paper, rubbing a hand over his mouth as he read.

"And our marriage? Is my INS status contingent upon it?" She blinked her eyes, confused by the question, then blanked her face, as old fears surfaced.

"Not at all. Your visa was issued purely on your work merits," she reiterated. He nodded slowly, then leveled twinkling blue eyes upon her.

"I can go home, then."

"If that's what you want," she confirmed. A hand reached out and lifted her hair over a shoulder, then cupped her neck, his thumb stroking it.

"I can think of little I want more," he answered once her eyes met his. Her eyes held his for long seconds, her mind registering the sincerity blazing within their depths. She diverted her gaze only long enough to reach into her purse again.

"In that case, you'll need this." He took the little black book from her, his thumb stroking the cover before he opened it. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, for he held in his hand the passport for Remington Steele.

"You kept it," he noted, more than a bit surprised. "I'd thought it would've found its way into the bottom of a refuse bin at some point." She fingered her throat and looked away.

"I suppose I hoped there would be need for it again, one day," she admitted. He set aside the little book, and eased closer to her, then used two fingers against her chin to draw her eyes back to him again.

" _Thank you_ ," he told her, pressing a kiss to her brow, "For keeping it for me..." Another to her cheek "…for coming to Aruba..." then her other cheek "…for staying and fighting for this, for us." Cupping the back of her neck in his hand, he drew her lips up to his, teasing them before his mouth settled firmly over hers. She dragged her fingers through his hair, before pressing her hands to the back of his head, drawing him downwards with her, humming against his lips when he stretched out over top of her, his lips departing hers to trail down her neck. She shivered against the heat left in the wake of his lips.

"Remington," she murmured, as one hand caressed his back and the other dared a soft touch to discover the firmness of his shapely bum. Instinctively, he drew the skin beneath his lips firmly into his mouth and ground his pelvis hard against hers. With a murmur of gentle longing, she circled her hips against his, while reaching to tug his shirt out from beneath his belt. He groaned at the evidence she wanted him, would hold nothing back should he pursue, searing her skin with his breath in the moment before he found her lips again, devouring them hungrily. But it was the feel of her hands against his bare skin, that had him tearing his lips from her, pushing up and away, placing distance between them. He sat staring at her, hand held over his mouth, for long moments before holding up a hand palm up towards her.

"We need to talk," Remington announced, then suddenly stood. "I won't be but a minute."

Pushing herself up on her elbows, Laura stared after him, before flopping back down onto her back and covering her face with her hands, growling low in frustration. For four years the man had been trying to lure her into his bed, and here she was ready, willing and positively itchy and any time things became _remotely_ heated, he'd find a reason to put a stop to it. She had no idea what the barrier was keeping them from crossing that line, so how could she ever hope to break through it?

She dropped her hands from her eyes and sat up when she heard Remington reenter the room, before he could find too much amusement in her plight. But instead of seeing a cocky little smile playing on his lips, she found he was not only serious, but gnawing on a thumb nail, a sure sign he was nervous about the discussion he wished to have.

"What's on your mind?" she asked, as he sat down facing her, his feet near her hip. Taking her hand in his, he lifted it and brushed his lips over her knuckles, while his blue eyes held hers.

"Promise me, you'll hear me out?" he asked. She shifted nervously beside him at the request.

"Alright," she agreed. Still holding her hand clasped in his, he patted it with his other, then held hers between both of his.

"I'd like us consider taking a brief trip to Santo Domingo before returning home to LA." She gave him a puzzled look, as his words were nothing she'd anticipated. She gave a short snort of laughter and rolled her eyes.

"Hoping to get a little more color before you face the photographers' flash bulbs back in LA?" she guessed.

"Not at all, although should we choose to spend a bit of time on the beach while we're there, I wouldn't be opposed."

"Ha! I bet," she laughed.

"Might I finish?" he requested. With a flick of her hand free hand, she indicated he should carry on. "The Dominican Republic offers something few other places do."

"White sandy beaches and temperatures in the mid-to-high eighties in October?" she quipped. His lips thinned with frustration. Removing one of his hands from where it still held hers, he stroked it throughout his hair.

"Divorces in twenty four hours."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

 _Bloody hell, that wasn't quite what you had in mind, Steele, old sport._ Remington watched as the color drained from Laura's face and felt her, unwillingly, flinch at his words. He'd been practicing the words he wished to say to her for days now, but had been caught off guard and, frankly, had been irritated by her unexpected flippancy when he'd tried to make the import of the conversation clear. He wasn't sure why her response had unnerved him as it had, as they'd long resorted to sarcasm, barbs and quick repartee when nervous. Now, he could only brace himself for the uphill battle that loomed.

Laura felt… sucker punched. That was the only apt description that could be applied to Remington's abrupt announcement that he wanted a divorce. She hadn't assumed… hadn't _meant_ to assume, at least… that as they'd spoken these last days of building a life together, creating a future, that he'd want to be bound to her legally. She hadn't meant to, but had.

A flush crawled over her skin, as humiliation set in when she recalled the last several nights crawling into bed to sleep with him when he'd never even extended an invitation. Her stomach turned over at the thought of how he'd been backing away as she'd been all but throwing herself at him. She resisted the urge to lift hand to brow, and focused on reining in her emotions. _God, Holt, what have you been thinking_ , she lamented silently. _We've never, not once, discussed marriage, at all, but particularly as it applies to ourselves._ Mentally drawing a deep breath, she carefully blanked her face.

"Well, it _is_ practical," she observed. "We can have it done in a snap." She emphasized the thought with a snap of her fingers. She plastered a smile on her face for good measure, then taking her hand from his, she stood up. "I'll call the airline after I get ready for bed. With a little luck, we'll be in Santo Domingo by this time tomorrow night." Remington spun around where he sat, and huffed out an exasperated puff of air.

"Don't do that, Laura," he protested. "Don't shut me out."

"I have no idea what you mean," she answered lightly, widening her smile. "It's a practical, efficient manner with which to dispose of our legal… entanglement. Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't think of it myself." She walked back to him and leaned down to buss him on the cheek. "I'll be back after I book our flight." He launched to his feet and grabbed her arm before she made it three feet across the room.

"You gave me your word to hear me out," he reminded her, sounding a bit more desperate than he cared for. She glanced forlornly towards the foyer, where the stairway represented an escape. She wanted nothing more than to retreat to her room, lick her proverbial wounds, and pull herself together before speaking with him again. But it would do no good to make an exit, graceful or otherwise, as in the mood he was right now, he'd simply pursue. Her shoulders slumped slightly, and she forced the smile back on her face, before turning around but couldn't prevent herself from wrapping her arms around her body, offering herself solace.

"You're right, of course. I did. I'm sure there are details we need to go over, as far as—"

"Damn it, woman! Will you just keep quiet for a minute so a man can get a word in edgewise?" he thundered. Her eyes narrowed dangerously at him, for both the term he'd used to reference her and his tone.

"By all means," she retorted, frostily. He paced the floor for better than a minute, trying to calm his rioting emotions and struggling to find the right words. When he finally turned to face her, he lifted his face to the ceiling for long seconds while rubbing at his neck, before letting out a heavy breath of air and dropping his head to look at her. _One last chance, old sport, to get it right,_ he reminded himself, _so choose your words wisely._

"This is not what I want for us, Lau-ra," he drew out her name, nervously swiping a hand through his hair as he heard the plea in her name. "On our silver wedding anniversary, I don't want to look back upon our wedding only to remember my bride neither understanding nor _meaning_ the vows exchanged… of me in my pristine tux, while she stood beside me muddied, her hair a tangled up and sporting any number of scrapes and bruises, the result of me having left her to fend for herself on a dangerous case while I dashed about, intent on deceiving her, putting one past her. I don't wish to recall the anger, the injury we visited upon one another in those first weeks we were wed, or how I spent those days so damned _lost_ because of the distance between us." His face pinched with distress, and he rubbed at his mouth before his next admission. It took every bit of his will to keep his eyes upon her when he spoke. "I don't want to want to live the next fifty years feeling like I left my _wife_ , then in the weeks after had countless…" he swallowed hard, "…adulterous affairs…" He stumbled when she flinched, and he saw the hurt cross her face, he knew he'd see there. Unable to watch the latest of injuries he'd visited upon her any further, he shoved his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels and averted his face. "There's not a vow a man makes to a woman when he weds her that I haven't broken. These aren't the memories I want for us, Laura, and I should think you wouldn't either." He'd finished the speech quietly, uncertainty lacing his voice. Now, all he could do was wait and see if he'd be using the second part of what he'd planned to say.

"No, I don't," Laura admitted, as she crossed the room to sit down on the couch. "I have my own set of regrets... Things I said…" she held up two hands in front of her and bobbled her head, adding, "…and did, that will always _be there_ , tied to that wedding." She quashed the pang of regret in her stomach, taking some relief in the fact he wasn't trying to end them, just the marriage that should never have been in the first place. A sudden thought occurred to her, and she laughed aloud.

"Should I dare ask what it is that's amused you?" he asked, taking a seat next to her on the couch. She gave him a cockeyed grin.

"I never did figure out if I would be Laura Holt, Laura Holt-Steele or Laura Steele," she reminded him. Avid blue eyes settled on her, as he took her hand in his and weaved his fingers through his.

"Had you been leaning in any particular direction?" he wondered.

"I had been, yes." He waited, but she didn't elaborate further.

"And that would be…" he drawled.

"No longer important," she answered evasively, flashing him a cheeky grin.

"I guess that might depend on one's perspective, hmmm?" he postulated, reaching into his pocket.

"True. But it's the perspective of the one who knows the answer that matters most, isn't it?" she challenged.

"Ah, but perspectives can be changed," he pointed out. "For instance, there was a time when Santo Domingo was widely regarded for the very reason we are going there: expedient dissolution of marriages. And now, it is far better known for services of another kind…" He allowed the thought to trail off. _Wait for it. She'll not be able to resist asking…_ She finally flipped a hand towards him, and laughed.

"Alright," she drew out the word. "I'll bite. _What_ is Santo Domingo better known for?" He took a breath and searched for his backbone. _You can do this, Steele, old sport. Get it right this time._

"For this," he answered, opening the jeweler's box and holding it before her. He swallowed hard, then raised his eyes to meet hers. "Marry me, Laura." He wobbled his head, and bestowed a strained smile upon her. "After, of course, you divorce me." Laura stared at the ring, her tongue flicking out to moisten lips gone dry. The ring was elegant in its simplicity showing how well he knew her: a stunning radiant cut diamond set in a platinum band channeled with the same. She lifted her eyes to meet his.

"Remington, are you _sure_ about this? I know we've agreed we want to make a life together, but outside of our arrangement for the sake of the INS, _we've never_ discussed _marriage_." She wrung her hands together. "Not six months ago, neither of us had any idea what came after that 'magical moment'," she made air brackets with her fingers.

"I _knew_ what _I hoped_ us finally taking that step forward would mean," he interrupted, to correct. "What I didn't know was what it would mean for _you._ There was every chance you'd either believe yourself in too deep and run, or be content to take what's between us no further." He set the ring on the coffee table and took her hands in his. _Play it straight, old sport. Now's the time for an eloquent tongue, if ever there was one._ "I want a life with you, Laura, but not one where we part each evening and go to our separate homes. I want a life where we buy a home…" his eyes caught and held hers, while he squeezed her hands, "… _our_ home, one that suits what we _both_ want and need. A life where we begin discussing children, when, how many. A life where you have not a single doubt I'm yours, that I'm precisely where I wish to be and I know you're mine, that you're pre—"

"Yes."

"-cisely where…" He stumbled to a stop as her single word registered. Dropping one of her hands, he nervously rubbed at his face. He'd expected to have a good deal of convincing to do. She couldn't really mean… "Yes? Yes, to what? Part of what I—"

"All of it," she cut in again, her laughter trickling into the air around them. "Yes, I'll marry you…" she gifted him with a dimpled smile, "…after I divorce you." He took another swipe at his face, before a pair of keen blue eyes met hers.

"Yes?" he repeated. Tugging her hand from his, she clasped his face in her hands, keeping her eyes with his.

"Yes." A brilliant smile lit his face, making his blue eyes twinkle, as his hands dove into her hair and his lips covered hers. She laughed under his mouth, so he took it to another level, which quickly stilled her laughter and demanded her participation. She did him one better. With a soft moan of pleasure, with flattened palms she pressed his back against the couch, following, until she straddled his lap. Her fingers toyed in his hair, caressed his neck, before her lips parted his to trail them down his neck, leaving sparks in their wake. Her mouth suckled beneath his ear, before drawing the lobe into it. He groaned, allowing his head to fall to rest against the back of the couch, one hand clutching her waist, the other diving into her hair.

"Laura," he murmured.

"Make love with me, Remington," she purred next to his ear, her hands popping open one button at a time on his shirt, as her lips journeyed down his neck again, before they settled over his bared collarbone. Breathing hard, he grasped her arms, pushing her back, until she was forced to land puzzled and frustrated eyes on him.

"Not now," he panted. "Not yet." She let out a harsh puff of air.

"Why not?" she ground out, circling her hips against the proof he was aroused as she. Laughing gruffly, he grabbed her hips stilling them, before he reached up to lift her hair over a shoulder and cup her neck.

"I've found I've grown quite enamored with the idea of honoring the tradition of a man not bedding his bride until _after_ the wedding," he admitted, intense, white hot eyes blazing into hers. She stared at him as though he'd finally gone 'round the bend, then laughed with mirth.

"Good one, Mr. Steele." She leaned in to kiss him, her hands returning to the buttons on his shirt. His hands caught her waist and, easily lifting her, he sidled out from beneath her to stand. She turned on the sofa to look up at him, thoroughly dumbfounded. "You can't be serious!" she all but growled.

"Oh, but I am," he assured her, shoving his hands in his pockets and grinning at her. "Besides, you held me off for four years. By my way of thinking, you can hold your desires in check for a mere two days, three at the outside." Her mouth dropped open and her brows lifted nearly to her hairline.

"Hold my…" She shook her head in disbelief, then thinking on it, gave him a half smile. "I had that coming, didn't I?" He sat back down next to her.

"There's perhaps a bit of tit-for-tat in there, but actually I find myself… grateful… now, that you held us off." That called for another lift of her brows.

"You're _grateful?!"_ She barked out a short laugh. "Oh, this ought to be good. Care to explain?"

"We were always waiting on a worthy moment, then searching for a worthy setting," he shared. "Can you think of a time and place more worthy than our wedding bed, after we've been bound together as husband and wife? Hmmmm?" Laura bit at her lower lip. There were times she forgot her Mr. Steele's inclination towards romance. She leaned in to touch her lips to his cheek, then curled up into his side.

"No, I can't." She absently stroked his chest as he stretched an arm around her and tugged her a bit closer. A horrifying thought struck her. "Oh God, Mother can never know," she bemoaned, scrunching up her face, "Or I'll be hearing the rest of my life that she'd told me for years 'a man won't buy the cow if he can get the milk for free.'" His surprised laughter echoed in the room.

"Oh, I don't know. That bit of news could guarantee my place as her favorite son-in-law," he mused.

"Not if you're dead," she deadpanned, earning another laugh. With a sigh, she pushed away from him and stood up. "I'm going to get ready for bed and make those reservations." She leaned down to touch her lips to his. "I'll see you shortly."

Remington watched as Laura left the room, admiring the gentle sway of her hips. As he stood and reached for their wine glasses, his eyes fell upon the engagement ring. Picking it up, he closed the lid, and placed it back in his pocket. He allowed himself a moment to savor the memory of the evening, still not quite believing she'd said yes so easily. He said a silent prayer of thanksgiving, then, as an afterthought, said a prayer that nothing would go wrong before they made it to the altar.

* * *

 **A/N: Next week we wrap up Fractured Steele in a couple short chapters. But... Keep an eye out on Wednesday when I'll be publishing a sneak peek of which story is next up :)**


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

"What have we got here?" Remington asked, sitting up in the bed and folding back sheet and comforter for her to join him. Laura climbed into bed next to him, then set the box on her lap after he'd pulled the covers up over her.

"It's the box Daniel left for me. I thought we might open it together," she cast her eyes in his direction, "If you're up to it." The days of his deepest grief well past, thanks to the woman next to him, he felt the familiar pang of loss, but instead of being overwhelmed by it, curiosity took the forefront of his mind.

"Let's see what we have, eh?" he agreed, giving her a smile meant to reassure her he was up to the task. With a smile in return, she untied the ribbon wrapped around the box and opened the lid. Removing the folded note, she set it aside, before picking up the strand of pearls beneath them.

"They're lovely," she admired, then handed them to him, turning her attention to the note, reading aloud:

 _My mother left these to me, so I might one day given them to my wife. Who better to leave them to than the woman who captured my boy's heart. I must say, I enjoyed our jousts for him, although you never realized you'd won long before we met. I imagine my mother would be honored it is you who will wear these one day. Take care of my boy, for me. It somehow makes leaving easier, knowing he has at last found who he is and where he belongs. Daniel._

She turned to him, to see how he'd handled this note to Daniel, only to find him avidly rubbing a pearl against the edge of his top teeth.

"What _are_ you _doing_?!" she exclaimed. He gave her a sheepish look.

"Sorry. Old habits…" he left the thought unfinished. She laughed as she took them from him and returned them, along with the note, to the box they'd come from. Setting the box on the bedside table, she waited as he slid down to lay on his back and opened an arm to her.

"Did they pass muster?" she asked, as she lay down with him.

"Superior color and luster, high quality nacre, perfectly matched. I'd need a loop, but I'd wager the diamonds on the hasp are of similar quality," he shrugged.

"It wouldn't have mattered to me if they were paste," she informed him.

"I know," he acknowledged, bussing her on top of the head. And he did know. Unlike so many of the women… people… that had traipsed through his life, for her, the value of trinkets, of baubles, lay in the sentiment behind them, not the quality or monetary worth. In fact, there was only one piece of jewelry she wore faithfully each day: her grandmother's ring. But there were two more rings he hoped to see adorning her fingers each day. The ones signifying she belonged to him, and, conversely, he to her. "Laura?" She lifted her head, and propped her chin on hand rested against his chest so she could look at him.

"Yes?" He lifted her hair over her shoulder, then cupped her cheek in hand and caressed it with his thumb.

"Are you sure?" She furrowed her brow and tilted her head, looking at him before sidling away, and, grabbing his hand, pulled him to his side so they lay facing one another.

"Yeah, I am," she answered with a quiet confidence he'd never seen in her when it was their relationship they were discussing. She drew her fingers through his hair, then let her hand rest along his jaw. "I won't lie and tell you it doesn't scare the hell out of me. It does." He half grunted, and pursing his lips, nodded his head. "But I've spent four years keeping you at arm's length because of fear, and all that served to do was leave me frustrated, with a cold bed and you… gone." She smiled then pressed both palms to his shoulders, sending him to his back again. Without thought, she straddled his hips as a smile lit his face.

"What's gotten into you, Miss Holt?" he laughed. She was so… relaxed, more… content, than he could ever remember, and the pure pleasure of seeing it warmed his blood.

"You," she answered simply, then leaned down, her hair fanning out around his head. She kissed him with a tender thoroughness that left him clutching her to him. His blue eyes blazed bright, stayed on her face when the kiss ended. She drew her hands over his bare shoulders, down his chest, stilling on his abdomen as a shiver coursed through his body. "I want _you_." She bent over to kiss him again, then climbed off him and lay down again. He rolled to face her, burying a hand in her locks, eyes still on her face. "And I don't mean just in my bed…" she leaned in to touch her lips to his, "…although I want you there as well." _That_ admission earned a hard kiss and a smile that lit the room when their lips parted.

"Words I feel I've waited a lifetime to hear." She blinked away the kiss, then rolled to her back to frown at the ceiling.

"You leaving as you did may have been the best thing that ever happened to us, in a way," she said thoughtfully. He pursed his lips and picked up her hand, stroking his fingers over the back.

"Care to explain?" She glanced at him, the returned her attention to the ceiling.

"For myself, at least, it forced me to do a good deal of soul searching." She rolled back to her side, and propped her cheek in hand. "Everyone has that…" she tilted her head from side-to-side, "…person they turn to for support during the hard times, for advice…" she frowned "Or maybe perspective is a better word… when things are…" she searched for the words, and nodding her head continued, "…confusing. _You're_ that person for me. If I turn to you when I'm the most vulnerable, never doubting that you'll be there, why was I still refusing to admit I was in love with you… even to myself? Why was I so afraid to cross that line, turn that corner?" He reclaimed her hand for his own to brush his lips over her knuckles while his eyes held hers.

"Come up with any answers?" She puffed out a breath, such admissions going against her grain. She flopped back over onto her back.

"Pride." She bobbled her head. "Fear. I promised myself a long time ago that I would never rely on anyone but myself _ever again_ , that I would stand on my own two feet.I don't _want_ to need you, but I do." He cupped the side of her face in his hand and stroked her cheek with his thumb. She turned to look at him as he intended.

"I should think it would weigh in my favor to know you can come to me, that I'll be there," he commented quietly. She caught his hand, and brought his hand to her mouth to press her lips to the palm.

"It does," she agreed, turning onto her side, keeping his hand in hers, "And it doesn't. It's just one more thing to be lost when you go. And if we were to become…" she scrunched her nose in advance of the word, "…lovers…"

"All the more to be lost…" he concluded for her. She nodded in confirmation, before turning to her back again, pressing a palm to her forehead.

"You'd think after you disappeared to London, I would have understood," she frowned. "It was… hard, not seeing you every day, talking to you, knowing where you were, if you were safe. But I _didn't get it_ ," she told him, frustration with herself giving her voice an edge. "It took you leaving Ashford for me to see it…"

"And what was that?" She turned to her side and gave him a rueful look.

"It didn't matter if we'd crossed that line or not, I was already in too deep…" she added in an undertone "…had been for years." She reached for his hand again, tangling their fingers together. "I took a leap of faith when I entrusted you with my most valuable possession: the role of Remington Steele. I think it's time to take another and to simply believe if we put half the effort into making this work as we did into finding ways to stay apart, then we can do it."

"We _will_ make this work, Laura, because we _want it to_ ," he insisted, softly. He rolled away to pick up the jeweler's box off the nightstand where he'd left it. Facing her again, he opened the lid and removed the ring. "Shall we 'seal the deal', so to speak, Miss Holt?" he asked, holding the ring aloft.

"I think we should, Mr. Steele," she answered, holding out her left hand.

"I can't quite believe I'm doing this," he murmured, looking up at her through his lashes, "That you said yes… that we're officially affianced." He slipped the ring on her finger, staring at it a long moment, before lifting her hand to his mouth and brushing his lips across her knuckles.

"I think we're more than that," she mused, tucking herself up against him when he lay back and held open an arm.

"Oh? How so?"

"By my count, we're married, soon-to-be divorced and engaged, all at one time," she laughed. His laughter joined hers.

Laura held up her hand, examining the ring. She was never one that gave much thought to jewelry, didn't particularly crave it. Even when she'd thought Wilson might one day propose, she hadn't been one to sit back and daydream about the ring she'd hoped to receive. If asked, all she could have offered up was she liked the tradition of the diamond, but she didn't want an ostentatious 'rock' like so many girls… women… she knew. Remington had chosen perfectly. There was not a doubt in her mind the diamonds met his impeccable standards, making her quickly flit away from even speculating at the cost. It still ama—

"Lau-ra," Remington called her name for the third time. He'd been nattering on about the matter of their current state of three marital statuses being shortly resolved, but she'd clearly heard nary a word he'd said.

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "What?" He chuckled again instead of repeating his thoughts. "I forget, sometimes, how well you know me." She dropped her hand to his chest and let her fingers wander idly.

"Like it, then?" he grinned, unseen, above her while stroking a hand over her hair.

"I do," she answered. "Our flight's at one tomorrow and I need to run a couple of errands before we leave for the airport."

"What time do we need to be up?" he asked, reaching for the alarm.

"Not 'we,'" she corrected. "Me. Since you've developed a sudden yearning for tradition…"

"I see. Dress shopping, is it then?" She propped herself up on his chest to look at him, resting her chin on the back of a hand. "I need to know where you're thinking we'll have the ceremony. A courthouse? The chambers of a Justice of the Peace?"

"I'd envisioned the beach at sunset," he suggested, toying with her hair, "If, that is, it's agreeable with you."

"It sounds lovely." She pushed up to give him a soft kiss, then left his arms to lay on her side. He followed, spooning around her and reaching for her hand. As they fell to sleep the only thought on his mind was that in as little as two days the woman in his arms would be irrevocably his.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

As Remington had promised, obtaining a divorce in the Dominican Republic was shockingly easy and within thirty-four hours of their arrival on the Caribbean Island they were no longer married in the eyes of the law. They'd confounded the clerk who officially filed the documentation of the proceedings, by immediately requesting a marriage license and she'd given them queer looks as they provided their passports and license application. With a roll of her eyes, Laura leaned forward on the counter and gave the woman a conspiratorial smile.

"Remy had the officiant insert the word 'obey' into _my_ portion of the vows at our first wedding," she told the woman in a stage whisper.

"I didn't have him _insert_ it," he retorted, immediately falling into step with her. He flashed the woman his pearly whites. "How was I to know he'd be using archaic vows or his views on obeisance by wife to husband?"

"You hired him," she shot back. He feigned innocent outrage.

"He was no more than the first person in the directory who was available on such short notice!" he protested while she snorted disbelievingly. He gave the clerk a forlorn look, adding. "And has made my life bloody hell, since."

"So, I finally told Remy," she looked to the clerk for support, "Either we divorce and remarry _without_ that…that... _word_ in our vows, or he can expect a lifetime of _dis-_ obedience."

"Can't even ask my lovely bride to pick up our dry cleaning," he lamented, "Without being asked, 'Is that a request or an order, my Lord?'"

"So, here we are," Laura finished, flashing the clerk a brilliant smile who handed over the hastily issued marriage license and their accompanying passports.

They left the office amid shared laughter, then brunched on the hotel's beachfront veranda, where they toasted their divorce and upcoming nuptials with mimosas. Throughout the afternoon, to quell their mutual jitters, Remington waged a delicious assault on Laura's senses: kisses ranging from sweet to steamy; fingers dragged whisper soft down her back; a hand caressing a sensitive waist; lips trailing down the creamy column of a neck. His antics had served well as a distraction, but had left his blood on fire and her positively… itchy.

The groom wore tan and ivory: tan jacket and slacks, ivory vest, crisp white shirt and tan tie. She'd been unable to stop the admiring gaze that traveled over him. He was simply the most handsome man she'd ever known. But it was so, so much more than that. It was the humor that glinted in his eyes, it was the warmth with which he looked at her. It was in his quick wit, and his fearlessness in going toe-to-toe with her. It was his intelligence and instincts. It was the shoulder he offered her to lightly lean against when she needed strength, it was in the way he supported her dreams. It was his wisdom in her times of struggle, his ability to make her laugh at herself. Above all, it was his heart, the one that should have been hardened and grown cold at his childhood's hand, but instead was gentle and warm. She couldn't have possibly dreamt of anyone like him, and he was about to be hers. The mere thought was enough to make goosebumps scatter over her skin.

The bride wore white in the form of a sleeveless silk, floor length sheath with scoop neck and open back. The only accessories she wore were the pearls from Daniel and a pair of pearl studs to match. She positively took his breath away. But it was the confidence… the daring… glimmering in her brown eyes that left his heart pounding in his chest. In all his years, he'd never met another woman… person…like her. She demanded the most of herself and those around her. She defended, fiercely, what she believed in, who she loved. She was a bundle of fears wrapped up in a core of strength. She was intelligence, and logic, fire and ice. She was hand's down the most beautiful, most beguiling woman he'd ever known, and soon she would be only his. The thought had him capturing her hand in his before the minister ever began to speak.

They'd chosen to go with traditional vows for the ceremony – absent, of course, any reference to the word 'obey' in hers. Their 'I do's' were said with a quiet confidence, that bespoke of neither of them having a doubt about the journey they were choosing to take with one another. But it was when the minister called for them to exchange rings that Remington's heart fell into the palm of her hand. He hadn't expected a ring, hadn't believed she'd have either the time or the inclination to get him one. Yet, there it was, held between her thumb and forefinger: tangible proof that she was claiming him as hers, and hers alone.

"With this ring, I, thee wed," Laura repeated after the minister, her eyes dancing with joy at the shocked expression on his face. It took a swipe at his mouth with his hand, a deep breath, and a discrete clearing of the minister's throat to gather himself enough to continue forward.

"With this ring, I, thee wed," he repeated as he slipped the band, which matched her engagement ring, onto her finger.

There was nothing restrained about the kiss they shared after being pronounced man and wife. His arm wrapped around her waist, his other hand cupping the back of her neck, as he savored the taste of her lips, her mouth. Her hands clutched his shoulders, as she her senses were swamped but his rich, spicy taste. Their lips parted only with another clearing of the minister's throat. Still, he couldn't help a final touch of his lips to hers, before taking her hand and leading her towards the hotel. They were both lost in their own thoughts as they entered the hotel and took the lift up to their floor.

"So," he finally spoke with a squeeze of her hand, "Now that it holds import, in what direction were you leaning towards as far as your name's concerned? Hmmmm?" She slanted a glance towards him, a smile lifting her lips.

"I'm not sure I should say," she answered, slyly, turning to lean her back against the wall, as he unlocked the door to their room and swung it open. He stepped in front of her, leaning against hand on wall.

"Oh, and why's that?" he asked, lifting his brows. Her brown eyes shone with mischief.

"Because the answer would mean another admission on my part." He leaned in closer.

"I find you've aroused my… curiosity, Mrs. …" He pursed his lips, feigning thoughtfulness. He gave her a crooked smile. "It's quite the fix, a man not knowing his own wife's name." She laughed and gave him a dimpled smile, before sobering.

"The whole quandary between keeping my maiden name, hyphenating my married name? I realized it was just another way to keep distance between us," she admitted. "I don't want distance between us any longer." She lay her hand against his face. "It's Steele. Laura Steele." He nodded his head rapidly several times, then gathered her to him in a hug.

"Shall we, then, Mrs. Steele?" he inquired, sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her over the threshold of their suite, using his foot to close the door behind them. She looked around the room, then wriggled from his arms.

"What's all this?" she wondered. She walked around the table set with white linen and covered dishes.

"I should think it's self-explanatory," he mused, lifting a single brow, as he picked up the bottle of champagne that was chilling and peeled away the foil. She laughed and shook her head at him, as she peeked under one of the lids.

"When did you have a chance to arrange dinner?" she tried again.

"While you finished dressing for the ceremony. I thought you might be hungry, afterwards," he provided, popping the cork from the bottle he held in hand.

"I am hungry," she answered, taking the bottle from his hands and placing it on the table, before running her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, then fingering the hair at his collar. "But not for food." He swallowed hard at the sultry look in her brown eyes, in the way she pressed her petite frame against his.

"I've never been able to resist a challenge," he whispered, settling a hand on the small of her back, reveling in the feel of her bare skin beneath it, while his other hand cupped the back of her neck. "You've certainly been that." He drew her lips up to his, caressing them.

"I could say the same of you," she told him a bit breathily when his lips left hers. He lifted her easily into his arms again and carried her into the bedroom as she scattered whisper soft kisses along his jaw that left his blood humming.

They took their time at it, savoring, exploring each piece of skin revealed as a clothing was brushed aside, shrugged off. As lips trailed, fingertips discovered, soft sighs and quiet moans floated around them, while hands clutched sheets, pillows, a headboard, each other, at the exquisite sensations they were creating in one another. His touch left her hoovering on the brink of oblivion, when she reached for his shoulders, pulling him atop her. Her body quaked at the feeling of his heavy shaft lying atop the flesh that enfolded the bundle of nerves at the center of her pleasure.

"Together," she breathed. "Together the first time." He bent down, covered her lips with his, touching, nibbling, before delving deep as he positioned himself at her entrance. His hands dove into her hair when the kiss ended, and he waited until her eyes met his.

"I love you, Laura," he murmured. She lay her hand against his cheek, eyes moistening.

"I love you, Remington," she answered, huskily.

She drew in a sharp breath when he thrust his hips and pressed forward. Her hands clutched his shoulders, her back arched and she willed her body to relax, as a quiver passed through his body while he fought for control. She felt her muscles slacken, and soon all she knew was that unique feeling of him filling her, moving within her body. They went up together, he breathing her name, she whispering his. Their bodies hadn't even stopped quaking, when she pressed him to his back, and began exploring his body again.

They'd left the bed several hours later, to shower and order food from room service, tumbling back into bed when their bodies were refortified. After making love again, Laura dozed in Remington's arms while he stroked her back and toyed with his ring. He was still fully gobsmacked that she'd thought to bestow a ring upon him. Perhaps he shouldn't be, as when they'd played a married couple, they'd both adorned their finger with a ring. The first time they'd posed as such during the Marcall case he'd been positively flummoxed by how right being… tangibly _linked_ to Laura had felt. In his mind, he'd claimed her as his own long before, but even then thoughts of marriage had never traipsed through his mind. No, his first thoughts of marriage hadn't arrived until a year later in the form of what some might describe as a nightmare – he and Laura married, with twins and another child on the way, all of them crowded into his one bedroom flat, the Agency but a memory.

* * *

 **"Do you ever have dreams, Laura? About us? About our lives?"**

 **"I suppose. Sometimes."**

 **"I have had some dreams recently, troubling at first. But now I realize they've helped put some things in perspective."**

 **"And?"**

 **"And, I finally understand that I've stayed around not for the promise of what our relationship** **might be… but for the reality of what it is."**

* * *

Maybe the seed had been planted then, subconsciously, at least, he pondered. The idea of one day marrying Laura, creating a home, a life, a family with her. He neither embraced the idea fully nor rejected it out of hand. He only knew that by the time he'd returned from London the year prior, he could no longer envision a future without her. Now, here on his hand, lie proof of her commitment, to their fut—

"It's inscribed," she announced sleepily, her warm breath caressing his chest where her head lay.

"As is yours," he replied. She rolled to her back, then pushed up in a sitting position.

"It is?" He sat up, then leaned his back against the headboard.

"Mmmm. Both, actually," he clarified, giving her a crooked smile, amused that the detective in her hadn't examined the ring for such already. She removed her engagement ring and examined the inside of the shank in the dim light.

" _My Ilsa_ ," she read aloud, then looked over her shoulder, bestowing a smile on him. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her bare shoulder. She returned the ring to her finger then pulled off the other. " _I love you_."

"In case my treacherous tongue fails me in the future," he explained. Eyes tingling, she could only bite her lip and nod her head, while putting the ring back on. She scooted backward, to join him against the headboard, looking at him in surprise when he plucked her engagement ring off her finger. The action was self-explanatory when he slipped it onto her left hand above her wedding band, and brushed his lips against the pair.

"Your turn," she directed.

"Alright. Let's see what we have," he agreed easily. His heart pounded against his ribs when he read the inscription, and he drew a hand through his hair, held absolutely speechless. For written inside of the ring were the words he'd spent an entire childhood wishing to hear, and, for what seemed like a lifetime to hear from the woman beside him. "My God, Laura," he whispered, gruffly.

It was all he could manage as he placed the band back on his finger, then eased her back down until she lay on the bed. She threaded her fingers through his hair, then drew his head downwards to kiss him. The man of deeds then showed her what the inscription had meant for him, and when, at last, they fell asleep, with her tucked into his arms, the final thought on his mind before sleep dragged him under was the words she'd given him.

 _I'll keep you, always._


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Laura and Remington spent thirty-six glorious hours alone together after their wedding, before departing for LA. They had no idea, yet, where they'd live but had agreed to split their time between the loft and his flat until they found a home which would work for them both. It wasn't much of a plan, but it didn't matter, as the only thing that did was they would lie down together each night and wake to one another in the mornings, from here forward.

They'd arrived in LA at eleven a.m. and Remington hadn't even bothered to ask if Laura wished to stop by the Agency before going to her loft where they'd be spending the next several days until he could arrange to have his belongings returned. She'd fidgeted throughout the last hour of the flight and he knew her mind was already dissecting what needed to be done to get the Agency back up and running at full speed after more than two weeks away. The usually stoic Fred had smiled wide when he saw Remington exit the airport with Laura, but had merely nodded when Remington issued the order:

"To the office, Fred."

By the time they'd arrived at Century Towers, they'd already hatched out a plan on how they'd announce recent events to Mildred. They strolled casually into the office, as though it were any other day, as if Laura hadn't been gone for weeks and Remington for months.

"Good Morning, Mildred," Laura greeted, as she entered the reception area while he held the door open for her.

"Welcome back, Miss Holt," Mildred greeted, pushing herself up from her desk chair with palms flattened against the desk. "How—" Her words faltered, when her eyes landed on Remington, then suddenly there was a flurry of action as she barreled out from behind her desk and scurried over to him. "Boss, you're back!" the woman who was a like a mother to him cried out with joy, before flinging her arms around him in a hug. She stepped back and took his face in her hands, ignoring his grimace, as she looked for any telltale signs of how he'd faired in the months he'd been gone.

"Please, Mildred, enough with the fussing," he groused, taking a step back. Secretly, he enjoyed her adoring attention, and they were both well aware that he did.

"Did you kids get everything ironed out?" she demanded to know, planting fisted hands on her hips.

"In a manner of speaking," he hedged, giving a tug to his earlobe.

"We divorced two days ago," Laura announced.

"Di—" Mildred cut the word short and threw up her hands. "What am I gonna do with the two of you?!"

"Laura and I simply agreed we didn't wish to remember that day and all that occurred before and after," Remington attempted to placate.

"Didn't—" Again, she didn't finish the thought. "So, back to the same old games. When will the two of you—"

"Now, Mildred," Laura interrupted, laying her hand against the woman's arm.

"Don't 'now, Mildred' m—" She stumbled to a stop, her eyes zeroing in on Laura's hand. Grasping it in her hand, she held it in front of herself.

"Five hours after we divorced, we married," Remington provided, walking across the room to place an arm around Laura's waist. He held up his own hand to show her the ring upon it.

"Well, it's about time!" she pronounced, sternly, then grabbed the couple and pulled them into a hug.

They'd closed the office to take Mildred out to a celebratory lunch, then had returned and worked the day through. Remington took the time to call Monroe to request his belongings be returned to the flat, and invited his old friend to join he and Laura dinner on Friday evening, where they'd announced their marriage to him as well.

Quite reluctantly, Laura had called her mother on the night they returned home only for the answering machine to pick up. She left a non-descript message asking her mother to call her, letting her know if she couldn't be reached at the loft, Abigail should try the office or Remington's flat. She postponed sharing the happy news with Frances, as informing her sister first would just lengthen the litany of Laura's misdeeds in her mother's eyes.

On Saturday, Laura and Remington were enjoying a long, lazy morning in bed together. They'd made love after first awakening, then as she'd dozed he'd made them breakfast in bed, which was followed by another round of lovemaking, after which he'd pulled her to them, and they'd slumbered some more. The trilling of the phone finally roused them close to noon. Laura rolled over, picked up the receiver, mutter a sleepy greeting.

"Laura, it's your mother," Abigail greeted in return. "I just got back into town, dear or would have returned your call sooner." Laura sat bolt upright in bed, resisting the urge to groan.

"That's alright, Mother." Remington's ears perked up, and he pushed up to recline against the headboard.

"Is everything alright, dear?" Abigail asked. "I have a half dozen things I need to get to, but you so rarely leave a message I thought it best to call and find out if something's wrong."

"Everything's fine, Mother," Laura assured. "I just have some news to share, and I wanted you to hear it from me first." Conversation stalled as she couldn't say the words.

"Laura?" Abigail called her name impatiently. Laura's fingers automatically went to her brow and began to knead. She felt the bed move as Remington shifted behind her, and lay a supportive hand on her shoulder. Dropping her hand from her brow, she laid it over his.

"Remington and I got married… we're married," she informed her mother, forcing the words past her lips, then yanking the phone away from her ear when her mother began yelling. Gradually, she returned the phone to her ear, while Remington moved closer, listening in to her side of the conversation. "This isn't about you, Mother. It's about Remington and I… It's not all that sudden. We've been involved for years…" The conversation clearly continued to move downhill when Laura snootily declared, "I don't care what your friends at the Junior League or your bridge club will think, Mother." She heaved a sigh. "No, not in the Church… A minister, on the beach… I have no idea his denomination. It doesn't _matter._ " Her hand left his and returned to her brow. "What kind of question is that? Why do you _think_ I married him?" Her voice rose an octave on the next. "No! I'm not pregnant, Mother. And if I were, this isn't the fifties. I wouldn't need to get married to have a baby!" She let out another frustrated breath. "No… I'm _already married_ … No!...Because it's insane that's why!... It's _my life_ , and if you have a problem with my decisions maybe you should—"

Remington plucked the phone from her hand before she could finish that thought. She gave no resistance, simply flopped backwards on the bed and covered her face with her hands.

"Abigail, it's Mr. Steele… Remington," he greeted effusively. His smile quickly turned into a frown. "No, I've no idea how long Laurie Beth… That long. I see… I assure you it was never our intention to exclude the family. We simply-…. Yes. Yes, as most good Irish lads are…" Laura sprang back up in a sitting position at those words and tried to grab for the phone. He evaded her. "You suggested that?" She tried to snatch the phone away again.

"Remington, no!" He ducked and swayed away from her.

"I think it's a perfectly fine idea…" he agreed, as he turned to rake his eyes over Laura from head-to-waist, giving her an appreciative leer. As he'd intended, she looked down, realized she was completely bare, and blushing furiously, yanked the sheet up under her shoulders. The distraction gave him sufficient time to finish the conversation. "We'll take care of the details… Okay. Bye-bye."

She flopped back on the bed again, and with a growl, covered her eyes with her hands.

"Please, tell me you didn't," she begged. He stretched out beside her, grinning, and pulled one hand at a time from her eyes. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes, then groaned, covering them. "Oh god, you did."

"It's not a hardship, Laura," he mused, prying her hands down again. "Honorary Chairman of committees, audits by the IRS and SBIL, and, as we know all too well, legwork," she dropped her hands and snorted a laugh at the last, " _Those_ are hardships. Standing beside you as you pledge your troth to me?" He picked up a strand and toyed with it. "A veritable pleasure, I've discovered…" he raised a brow at her, "...when you mean those vows."

"Three weddings in less than six months," she protested, pressing a palm to her forehead. "It's obscene…" she gesticulated, "…not to mention unnecessary."

"Yet it seems your family finds it necessary to watch you marry, to feel a part of that day. Certainly, Mildred would be thrilled to see us wed. What harm can it do?" he ventured. "Hmmmm?" She puffed out an exasperated breath.

"Other than to my sanity?" she retorted. He chuckled softly while easing himself over top of her, holding most of his weight on his arms. He gave her a crooked smile, while moving his head from side-to-side.

"You know what they say…" Her fingers toyed with his hair, while the other stroked down his back, making him arch against her. She gave him a wicked little smile at the automatic response.

"What's that?"

"The third time's the charm." He waggled his brows at her.

Her sultry laugh ended when his lips covered hers. The third time was, indeed the charm. As for their third wedding? It was merely the icing on a cake, four years in the making.


End file.
